JD Junior - A Series
by Elisa
Summary: JD may be dead but Veronica's carrying his child.
1. After JD

Part I: "After JD"  
By Elisa Higgins (c) 2000  
scarlett@li.net  
  
VERONICA'S DIARY  
  
*April 30, 1989*  
Dear Diary,  
Last Entry.  
No one can stop JD.  
Not the FBI, the CIA, or the PTA.  
He once told me that "the extreme always makes an impression."   
Well, let's see how the sonofabitch reacts to a suicide he didn't   
perform himself.  
  
  
*May 5, 1989*  
Dear Diary,  
It's not over. I stood on the steps of Westerburg watching JD like  
some sort of Christ-figure as he embarked on his final suicide mission.   
The constant beeping of the bomb strapped to his chest was like some   
sort of derisive hallway chatter going on behind my back. I thought my   
2 week long trip to hell had finally ended. I was ready to start my   
life, or just keep living. It's funny how JD turned himself into some   
sort of martyr. Dying so I could live, so everyone in that gymnasium   
could live. Was that his way of cleaning the slate? I have to   
wonder. Did he actually believe he was saving us after he went to such   
extremes to try and take us with him? Did he plan on leaving the   
building if he had gone through with blowing the school up? Or was he   
going to follow the way of his mother? I stared into his black eyes   
and he grinned at me, ready. For what? Hell? Heaven? Would the   
ghosts of Heather, Kurt and Ram claw at his soul in some fiery pit   
under the earth? Or was JD ready to spread his wings and fly?  
God, what am I thinking?  
He made sure he was standing far enough away from me so I was safe. It   
was hardly a thought in the back of my head at the time. I seemed   
oddly sure of the boundaries of his psychosis. He had failed in his   
part to annihilate his microcosm of society and there was   
only one thing left to do. Why was I so confident at the time that JD   
wouldn't try to take me with him? Why didn't he? I would love to ask   
him.  
Yes, I watched him die. I wanted it to be the catharsis of my life.   
After this, no one could touch me again. I would be my own person.   
And not Heather, or Courtney, or anyone else could take that away from   
me. I thought JD was giving me my freedom. Now I'm not so   
sure. All I know is that I could barely read those beeping red numbers   
because there were tears in my eyes  
  
  
*May 7, 1989*  
Dear Diary,  
In death as he was in life, JD is a predator on my mind. I can't get   
the bastard out of my head. He haunts me. I hear Heather Chandler's   
voice in the hallways, but it's JD's lithe form I see outside my   
window. It's his eyes that plague my dreams. I want to be rid of   
him. But at the same time only part of me agrees with that. Sometimes   
I can still taste the smokiness of his mouth.  
He was so confident in the end, I should have known he'd have one last   
trick up his sleeve. The fucker knew what he was doing. He handed me   
my cross to bear on the steps of my high school and it gets heavier   
every day.  
No one knew quite how to handle what JD had done. But because he was   
dead, he was no longer to blame. Most people pointed fingers at his   
father. Ms. Flem immediately ran to the news stations and elevated JD   
as the victim. Troubled youth. It's all such bullshit.  
"Society nods its head at any horror the American teenager can THINK to   
bring upon itself!"  
Was JD right? Is he sitting in some canoe with his sax on some   
mythological river right now laughing at it all? He beat the rap. He   
was never caught, and I can't expose him because my ass is on the line   
too. Big Bud Dean now needs an army of lawyers to bail his ass out of   
scandal. Both his son and his wife blew themselves up.  
Part of me thinks JD was perfectly sane in his insanity. He had   
everything figured out to a T.  
  
  
*May 8, 1989*  
Dear Diary,  
Of all the funerals I've attended in the last month, JD's was the   
worst. Father Ripper presided as usual, and JD would have delighted to   
hear himself eulogized as an "innocent victim of society's sins." I   
can't believe how they turned this whole thing on its head! JD   
wasn't a Victim! He was the mastermind behind the whole fucking   
nightmare! I sat there in the pew and everyone was looking to me for a   
reaction because I was his girlfriend. God! I wanted to jump up and   
scream at everyone! I wanted to tell them how blind they all were!   
This is exactly what JD wanted. I'm sure of it. This was the proof he   
needed to tell the world he was right. We're all fucked up. The sick,   
psychotic children of a society that degrades us.  
I don't know what was worse, having to listen to such psychobabble   
bullshit while playing the part of the victimized girlfriend; or   
sitting there, staring at that shiny black box and   
knowing that it was empty. The police couldn't salvage one scrap of JD   
to put in the coffin. He was just so successful in spreading himself across   
Ohio State. Only a glossy photo rests on the satin where his body   
should have been   
It was unnerving.  
People were at JD's funeral out of sheer morbid curiosity. JD was   
only in Westerburg for 2 weeks. No one knew him, I mean really knew   
him. Except me. Ms. Flem was there. I think she always saw JD as her   
prime mental case ever since he pulled the gun on Kurt and Ram in the   
caf. She was probably the only one crying. JD's father didn't look   
too disturbed. He sat there objectively listening to the sermon as   
though he were the furthest thing removed from it. He was even   
laughing! That amused, evil look plastered on his sick face-a look I   
knew so well from JD himself. I think I was almost angry at him.  
Worst of all, I still can't figure out if JD's death is to be   
celebrated or mourned.  
As crazy as this sounds, I sometimes find myself thinking of his smooth   
face, of his lips; I lie in bed and wait for him to crawl through my   
window, slip between my sheets . . . thoughts like this scare the shit out of   
me. Did I ever love JD? Or was it just my overactive hormones lusting   
after some mysterious rebel who knew how to hold a Harley between his   
legs? Goddamnit!! Why can't he just get the fuck out of my head!?  
I watched his father sit there with relaxed amusement over his only   
child's death. I watched Ms. Flem wipe her eyes with a handkerchief   
because she lost her fourth student this month. Martha Dunstock sat   
beside me and said that she couldn't understand why JD had done it. He   
seemed so intelligent, so lively. I actually told her that everyone's   
life has got static. And then I caught myself saying it. Heather and   
Heather were there, Betty Finn, Peter, Rodney, my parents ("He seemed   
such a nice boy"); but there was only one thing I could focus on. And   
every time I stared at it I saw my reflection in its shiny black   
finish.  
  
  
*May 11, 1989*  
Dear Diary,  
It's prom night, junior prom night. I've actually had several   
legitimate offers to go, but I found myself turning down every one of   
them. I say I'm too tired after all the shit that's happened, but am I   
lying to myself? Is there something else at work here? Betty says I'm   
in mourning. She's completely misinformed. She thinks JD was the   
coolest guy she had ever laid eyes on. A boyfriend to kill for . . .   
to die for.   
Oh the humanity.   
I've convinced myself that I'm not in   
mourning for JD any more than I'm in mourning for Heather and Kurt and   
Ram. In fact, I wish JD were even more dead than he already is! He   
just won't get out of my head! Yesterday I resisted the urge to go to   
his grave just to reassure myself that he's gone.  
I feel like shit. I think I have the flu. I'm always nauseous and   
I've thrown up a few times in school. Martha says I have an eating   
disorder, "I'm too thin." I think my body is just a biological mess.   
All I've wanted to do is get on with my life, but I can't. Perhaps its   
suppressed guilt eating away at me? I'm a murderer and I can't really   
deny that to myself. The same conscience that made me fight JD won't   
let me live without the shadows of the dead hanging over me.  
I saw a Big Bud Dean Construction truck parked outside of an old   
apartment building. The very sight of it made my insides curdle. In   
that moment I thought I smelled JD's cigarette smoke in my car. He's   
not gone. There's something of him around every corner.  
Sometimes I wish that everything were back to normal. God, what am I   
saying? It's true though, in some sick sort of way. I wish JD and I   
had been normal. I wish we had gone to prom. I wish he hadn't turned   
crazy. I know now that he was fully aware I was feeding Heather   
Chandler Liquid Drainer that morning. He knew and he didn't stop me.  
Goddamnit, why JD?   
Just why in general.  
That first night with him was probably the last real night of my life.   
He made me glow. And I can't lie to you anymore than I can lie to   
myself. There was something about him that I loved. There I said it.   
At that point there was definitely something about him that I loved.   
So do I hate him now for fucking up my life? My soul is probably   
slated for Hell as it is. But is all the blame on JD? I went along   
with him. I shot Kurt because he told me to. I'm probably more at   
fault because I knew better. I was never the psychotic one.   
Right?  
Jesus! Listen to me! I'm making excuses for him! I think I've been   
brainwashed to the extent that even MY memory of him has been   
distorted.  
Ms. Flem has set up a tribute mural of all the students who committed   
suicide in these last few months as a tragic reminder of just how fragile   
life can be. There are a million pictures of Heather, Kurt and Ram.   
There's one of JD, it's right near my desk, and his eyes are   
always on me.  
As if the guilt wasn't bad enough.  
  
  
*May 20, 1989*  
Dear Diary,  
JD, YOU FUCKING BASTARD!!!!  
I should have known!!! I should have fucking known!!! He's laughing   
at me from his cage in Hell, I can almost hear him. I can't believe   
this! It's some sort of divine retribution. My life is on a one-way   
trip to hell and I've just hit rock bottom.  
I'm pregnant.  
And I know JD is the father. I haven't been with anyone since him.   
And before him-god the time just doesn't figure. It's his, it's his   
child! He's dead and he's still twisting the knife. Of all the guys   
in the fucking world I'm having his baby. JD is alive in me. What the   
hell am I supposed to do?! It's not the baby's fault its father   
was a fucking psychopath! But what if it turns out like him? What am   
I saying?! I can't keep this child! I'm sixteen! I can't have a   
baby!! Especially a psycho--baby. JD's baby.  
I'm pregnant with JD's baby.  
Suicide almost looks tempting.  
  
  
*June 5, 1989*  
Dear Diary,  
My life is a waking nightmare that just keeps getting more bizarre. I   
went ballistic when I found out I was pregnant with JD's baby. I cried   
for days. I couldn't think straight; I couldn't talk without my voice   
cracking. I threw up over and over again. I went to school,   
but I don't even remember it. No one knows yet--well, almost no one.  
I don't know if what I did was stupid. My feet sort of led the way and   
the rest of me followed. I found myself at JD's house, knocking on the   
front door. Before I could actually turn and run, his father answered.   
Something dangerous moved in his face when he saw me; but he covered it   
up quickly. And he didn't invite me in until I stated my case.   
I assumed JD had disclosed nothing to him regarding our relationship,   
so I was free to lie as much as I wanted. But I found myself telling   
Bud Dean more truth than I was prepared to. I told him I was pregnant   
with JD's child. I just blurted it out. Not that I ever liked the   
man to begin with, not did I actually think he would care, or was going   
to help me in any way. But it really wasn't help I was looking for. I   
don't know what it was. Peace of mind? Closure? There was some need   
in me to tell JD I had his child. But JD was dead, so I found myself   
telling his father. I said I didn't need money, not that he would give   
me any. In fact, the look on his face seemed to say that that was all   
he was concerned about. It was just one of those moments in life where   
you want to crawl into a corner and die. I didn't know what else to   
say. I stood there like a fool with JD's baby maturing in my   
belly--a fact that made him more of a part of me than I ever wanted--and   
there was his father staring at me like I was some sort of alien. He   
let me in though. I don't even know why I wanted to go in, but he let   
me.   
I followed Big Bud Dean through the house, which was still a disgusting   
mess of cardboard boxes. All the while I was babbling like an idiot   
about how I needed "closure," and how if I decided to have the baby I   
wanted to know a little more about its father so I could tell it later   
on in life. Was that the truth? I don't know. Bud Dean just "ahemed"   
and nodded. I don't know if he was even listening as I justified   
myself up the ass. He was definitely preoccupied, but he didn't look   
like he was in mourning for a second. I remember asking JD if he liked   
his father. "Never given the matter much thought," he had said.  
At the end of my mindless jabbering Bud turned to me, looking quite   
bored and uninterested even though this was his grandchild we were   
talking about.  
"Well," he said loudly, as if he were announcing it to the house in   
general. "I haven't junked his room yet so you can go on up and have a   
look around if you like. Don't know if you'll learn much though."  
He gave me a big, confident grin and waved me upstairs.  
'Junked his room?'  
I know that remark made me angry. I don't exactly know why, but I felt   
it flare inside of me and I held on to it tight.  
("So maybe I am blowing up the school--cause nobody loves me!")  
I went upstairs to JD's bedroom, where I realized I had never been   
before. Betty Finn always says "you can learn about a person from   
their bedroom." JD's was a pigsty. Even weeks after his suicide it   
still looked lived in. It was eerie. There were clothes thrown all   
over the rugs, tapes scattered across the dresser, posters covering the   
walls and ceiling. His desk was buried beneath mounds of junk and   
paper. His bed was unmade, his closet open and overflowing with stuff.   
I kind of stood there in shock before drinking it in. It occurred to   
me then that I didn't know very much about JD as far as his personal   
life was concerned.  
His wall posters ranged from The Cure, to Sid Vicious, to Jack   
Nicholson from "The Shining." He had all different kinds of weird   
music as far as tapes were concerned. On his desk were scary, abstract   
faces done in charcoal--I assumed the drawings were his. I didn't know   
JD was into art. There was a saxophone case at my feet, sheet music   
stuffed into a drawer.   
What is that saying about cleanliness and Godliness?   
The room smelled weird. At first I thought it was the fish tank or the   
cat litter. Cat? But beneath that was an overpowering stench of   
Bacitracin. It smelled vaguely like a hospital. I think I shuddered.  
I started looking through JD's drawers and came up with a small photo   
album, I was actually looking for a journal or something, hoping to   
catch a glimpse into his mind on paper. But a picture is worth a   
thousand words right? And the picture album in my hands was pretty   
odd to say the least.   
I can't describe all the pictures--there were ones of JD's mother with a   
baby boy on her lap I assumed was JD. It was actually hard to tell,   
only the eyes gave it away. The photos went up through childhood,   
photos of a boy who didn't look very happy or very loved by anyone,   
save his doting mother. I sat there on the floor among T-shirts I   
recognized--T-shirts that still smelled like JD's body--with these   
pictures in my hands and a baby in my belly and I think my emotions   
took over.   
When I finally recognized JD as JD he was probably 14 with sandy-brown   
hair looking angry and miserable. A few pictures later he was about 15   
or 16 with bleached-blonde hair cropped short and spiky. It was definitely a   
surprising look for him, and even with the photo in front of me I   
couldn't picture JD as a blonde. He must be turning in his grave knowing I saw   
these.  
The pictures continued for a while, and in each it seemed as if JD were   
someone else. Still JD, and yet not JD. He had a different look in every   
different place as if he were "cleaning the slate" every time he moved somewhere   
new. Continually starting over. Yeah, I suppose that sort of   
rootlessness could drive anyone insane. Finally I found a photo I   
recognized, black hair, black coat. I hesitated and then slipped it   
from its plastic sleeve and into my purse. "It's for the baby," I   
thought.  
It's for the baby.  
I heard the shower start up in the next room and figured it was JD's   
father. I cast one last longing look around--not that it would do me   
any good. Here I was, surrounded by JD's things, his scent, his life   
and death all in one room, and I was trying to get rid of him?   
God, what was I thinking.  
When I left, the shower was still going. I went downstairs hoping to   
just slip away unnoticed, but JD's father was walking his tread mill   
and watching Oprah. He waved and called out "Goodbye Veronica." I   
smiled weakly and left, still wondering why I had ever gone there to   
begin with.  
  
  
*June 15, 1989*  
Dear Diary,  
I still can't believe it's JD's child. I know when it happened too,   
the only time I wasn't careful and forgot to take the stupid pill,   
forgot to make him wear the stupid rubber. After JD and I ambushed   
Kurt and Ram in the woods our only means of escape from the police   
was to masquerade as a couple of dumb kids making out in my station   
wagon. The cop bought it and left. At the time, I was on the verge of   
exploding at JD. He had tricked me, had lied to me, but his arms were too   
tempting to leave once I was in them. We came so close to being caught that  
my heart was in my mouth and JD's flesh seemed like the safest thing   
around.   
It was just as guilty as mine.  
  
  
*July 4, 1989*  
Dear Diary,  
School is thankfully over. One less nightmare I have to worry about.   
I'm nearly four months pregnant and it's starting to show. I obviously   
didn't decide about the abortion yet. Maybe bringing a life into this   
world after I took so many out of it is my way of cleaning the slate?   
I don't think I can kill this baby. I don't want to kill anymore, I   
never wanted to kill in the first place. Shit.   
This is my flesh.   
Mine and JD's. I killed him once. I can't do it again.  
Martha and Betty were over tonight to watch my father play with his   
stupid fireworks. Every time I heard one explode I thought of the   
bomb. I thought of JD. I ended up going inside.  
Martha is happy that I'm putting on weight. Gee thanks. She told me   
so in front of my parents and my heart thudded to a halt. If there had   
been any color in my cheeks at that point it totally drained away.   
Betty saw my hands shaking, and later on in my bedroom she asked me   
about it. That's when I told them both I was pregnant. That in itself   
shocked them, and then I blurted out who the father was.   
Their mouths hit the ground.   
Something inside me curled up and died--unfortunately it wasn't the baby.   
Betty asked me what I planned to do. I told her that I thought of aborting it-  
that upset Martha. I wasn't aware that she felt so strongly about abortion.   
And then she made it sound as if I were obligated to keep the baby for JD's   
sake, so that a part of him could live on.   
Because he's dead and I'm not.  
I dreamt about him later on that night.   
I fell asleep ten minutes after Betty and Martha left and I dreamt about him.   
He came at me with a knife in those last few minutes and I shot him twice. I   
thought I killed him but he followed me outside with the bomb strapped to his   
body.   
The dream distorted things.  
JD showed me the bomb, and grinning, he grabbed me and dragged me back inside.   
I was screaming at the top of my lungs; screaming until my throat was soar. JD   
dragged me all the way back to the gymnasium where everyone was having the pep   
assembly. I was still screaming and crying and the bomb was still blaring   
loudly like an alarm clock. JD pulled me close. We were standing there in the   
middle of everything. I told him I was pregnant with his child. He   
said it didn't matter, that I was going to kill it anyway.  
And then we blew up.  
I was watching everybody burn, JD and myself included. Ms. Flem was   
yelling something about it being "one mighty circus" and everyone was   
dying. And then I felt my baby clawing its way out of my flaming   
stomach, trying to get to its charred father.  
I woke up screaming, my alarm clock blaring in my ear.  
  
  
*July 20, 1989*  
Dear Diary,  
Why must we forgive the dead? Was this another part of JD's master   
Plan? He knew so well the stupid mores of our society. So I ask you   
this, Dear Diary, am I actually forgiving JD the Hell he caused me   
because he is the dead father of my child? Tears are streaming   
down my face right now.   
My secret's out.   
I spent hours staring at my slightly rounded belly in the mirror before I went   
downstairs to tell my parents. It was one of the worst moments of my life.   
More for irony than anything else.  
The look on my mom's face was exactly the same as when she found me   
hanging in my bedroom. My dad just looked confused, as usual.   
They said: "I thought you were on the pill?"   
I said: "I was."  
The said: "Then why are you pregnant?"  
Maybe they were in shock? It took my mother a few moments before she   
finally asked if I knew who the father was. His name stuck in my   
throat. They had only met him once and had been impressed by his   
concern for my "mental well-being." His death disturbed them,   
but I'm almost positive they had no idea he was my boyfriend.   
"The dark horse in the running."   
That was the only time I mentioned him to them.   
So I told them who the father was.  
Jason Dean.  
So again let me ask: Do I truly have a responsibility to JD for   
carrying his child? Do I owe it to him to have this baby so it can   
correct the sins of its father? Is his life, because it's over, more   
important than mine?  
I'm not going to have an abortion.  
I'm going to have this child, not for my sake, not for the baby's, but   
for JD's.   
How fucked up is that?  
God! I'd kill JD right now if he were here in front of me!  
But this baby is going to live unless the hand of God itself comes down   
to abort it.  
So there will be no abortion, but there will be an adoption. I can't   
bring this child up. Part of me doesn't want to. I'll carry this   
spawn of my ex-boyfriend. I'll let JD live on through his child--but I   
won't be a part of it.  
I'm due in December, five more months of this turmoil. I dread it   
though. And at this point my biggest fear is that I will fall in love   
with this baby the way I did with its father. That I won't be able to   
give it up. Oh, God, I can't raise JD's baby. Not after what   
happened to him. Not after what happened to us.   
Shit.  
  
  
*October 13, 1989*  
Dear Diary,  
It's been awhile, I know. I just didn't feel like writing down all   
this depressing crap anymore. I heard recently that Big Bud Dean   
cleared out of Sherwood and headed for New York. If JD were alive he'd   
be going with him. It would have marked the end of our "normal   
relationship." We may have written letters to each other, or something   
corny like that. But those long distance things never last. And I   
would have found a new boyfriend, JD and a new girlfriend and life would   
go on.  
Ha Ha.  
But JD's not going anywhere.  
He's inside me.  
  
  
*November 21, 1989*  
Dear Diary,  
The adoption agency called today. They found parents after only 1   
month of searching. The adoptive parents are wealthy, the way my mom   
insisted they should be. The woman, the "mother" of my child, of JD's   
child is a psychiatrist. How fitting. I don't know. I suddenly feel   
empty. Part of me now doesn't want to give up the baby anymore. I think I have   
fallen in love with it. Either that or I've fallen back in love with its   
father.   
They're a part of me.  
  
  
*December 30, 1989*  
Dear Diary,  
For many mothers this would be the best day of their lives. I don't   
really know what it is for me. I had the baby today by caesarian.   
They knocked me out and when I woke up they told me it was a boy. My   
heart wrenched. I wanted to cry. Something about the idea of a   
son--a child to grow up in its father's image. I feel a bond with JD   
because of this baby. I know that in the past few months I over-  
romanticized our relationship. I've forgiven JD for all the evil shit   
he did. I've thought many times about the photos in his album. I   
wished I had slipped the whole thing into my purse.  
My heart, my truest and deepest inner self doesn't want to give this   
child up anymore. I keep telling myself it's the best thing. I'm too   
young, I'm not ready to raise JD's child, to have to explain to him   
what happened between me and his father.  
I just can't do that.  
  
  
*December 31, 1989*  
Dear Diary,  
I saw my son early this morning for the first time. I watched him   
through the glass because I didn't want to hold him. But there was   
this aching need to take him in my arms. I knew that if I lived the   
rest of my life without ever holding my baby then I would hate   
myself forever.  
So before I could change my mind he was in my arms staring up at me.  
It felt so right.  
When my vision cleared of tears and I looked down into his face I saw   
JD staring back at me.  
  
Elisa Higgins Part I: "After JD" (c) 2000  
scarlett@li.net  
  
Next: Part II: "Mad As Hell"  



	2. Mad As Hell

Part II: "Mad As Hell"   
By Elisa Higgins (c) 2000  
scarlett@li.net  
  
VERONICA'S DIARY  
  
*October 9, 1991*  
Dear Diary,  
It's been a long time, a really long time. I'm up at college now, a small   
nothing school in upstate Connecticut, studying psychology. After the baby was   
born I lost my ambition to go to Stanford, I lost my ambition to do a lot of   
things. Thankfully school is keeping my mind busy; but it's a hard process.   
I'm okay though, I think. Most of the time I convince myself that everything   
that's happened to me has happened to somebody else. Keeps me sane. Thoughts of   
the baby are never too far from my mind though. I wonder often how he's doing,   
what he looks like. I wonder even more often how he'll turn out. When I first   
saw him it occurred to me that giving him up was going to be harder than I   
thought, considering how much he looked like his father. But then I realized   
that that was exactly the reason I couldn't raise him. I couldn't go through it   
again, I had to give him a better chance. You know, part of me is afraid of him.   
Sometimes I think he's JD reborn.   
It's a horrifying thought.   
But like I said, I'm at school now. I'm starting over. New life . . . clean   
slate. The reason I haven't wrote you in so long is because I wanted to get on   
with things. Leave the past behind. I got sick of everything and I just didn't   
want to know about it anymore. As far as I'm concerned there is no Sherwood   
Ohio, there is no Westerburg, there is no baby, and there never was a JD.  
Who am I kidding right?  
But that's me now, that's how I have to think, otherwise it's all over.  
So I've decided I might start seeing this frat guy in my class, Todd. He's   
under the impression that he's the most charming college guy on the face of this   
planet. He got down on his knees and asked me out. I haven't gone on a date in   
ages, but I know I need to, I need to put the past to rest. He said he's going   
to take me to a club a few miles away from school. We'll have dinner, hang out,   
who knows? It might be nice.  
I can't hide from the world forever.  
  
  
*October 11, 1991*  
Dear Diary,  
So I'm going out with Todd tonight and I'm actually excited. Yeah he's full of  
himself, and his frat-boy friends are idiots, but he seems pretty cool. He's as   
far from my previous lover as I can possibly get, which is why I said yes, I   
suppose.   
So with the exception of midterms coming up, things are running quite   
smoothly. I try not to think too much, it's hazardous to my health. Shit, it's   
getting late and I'd better motor if I want to be ready for my date.  
Later.  
  
  
*October 13, 1991*  
Dear Diary,  
Truth, REAL LIFE, is a whole lot fucking stranger than fiction!! It's been two   
Years!! 2 FUCKING YEARS!!!  
Oh Christ.  
I don't know what to do; I don't know what to say--it's amazing I'm sane enough   
to even think, but I need to collect my thoughts; now more than ever. Shit,   
maybe I should start at the beginning, God knows, I suddenly have all the time   
in the world.  
I can't fucking believe this.  
Okay, Friday night I went out with Todd. Everything started out fine, it was   
all fucking fine!! We went to the club, and things were cool, but then Todd   
started getting hammered, he started blabbing about he and his friends, and   
games they play. He started babbling about score cards, and women, and getting   
laid; but I was hardly listening because, for some unknown reason, my head had   
begun to spin. And then it occurred to me as I stared at his beaming face, at   
the dimples in his cheeks, at the way he was acting, that I was fucked.   
Yes, fucked.   
Or about to be.  
He spiked my drink. Apparently I was part of this so-called game. I was the   
next couple of porno points he was going to brag to his friends about. I got   
irate, but whatever he had slipped me took it's toll fast, and before I knew it   
he was helping me out to his car parked in the ass-end of space in some dark   
lot.  
Only me. Why do I get all the fuckheads?!  
I should have known.  
He practically stuffed me into the back seat of his car, and then he was on top   
of me, tearing at my clothes, laughing. I couldn't fight him off. He was too   
strong and I was too drugged.  
And then it happened.  
From out of no where the car window shattered, the door swung open, and I felt   
Todd suddenly lift off my body. I was so relieved to have him off of me, that   
it didn't even occur to me that this was an odd thing to have happen   
at this particular moment. Distantly I heard struggling, but I couldn't see   
anything. I was fading away. Somewhere in the remote corners of my brain I   
recognized a sound I knew all too well, it was like a firecracker going   
off, though I knew it was anything but.  
I actually felt like laughing.  
'Somebody's dead,' I thought. That somebody should have been me. I wish it had   
been me. The door above my head ripped open and I felt the cold night air rush   
in and wrap all around me. Someone grabbed me under my arms and pulled me off   
the seat, out of the car. I vaguely felt my legs hit the pavement, and through   
my blurry vision I saw a dark figuring hovering above me, dragging me across the   
ground. Tendrils of long hair that wasn't mine dangled in front of my face.   
And then I was stuffed into another car. But my consciousness was gone, and at   
that point I just didn't care about anything that was happening.   
When the drugs wore off I woke up in a bed that wasn't mine in a room I didn't   
recognize. It was cold, dark, quiet. I was so confused, and then the fear set   
in. What the hell was going on?? And why does this shit always happen to me?   
There was a faint blue light, TV light, drifting in from down the hall. I   
slipped out of the bed, surprised to see that I was fully dressed. In the   
heart-racing seconds since I opened my eyes, every vicious rape scenario I could   
think of had played itself out. But from the look of things, I was untouched.   
It took my eyes a moment to get used to the shadows, and I found myself   
instinctively searching for a weapon. But the room was empty, save for the bed.   
So I started down the hall.  
No sound, the TV must have been on mute. I had this horrible feeling   
that I was being watched, that every step I took was being scrutinized, but the   
hall was narrow and I was alone. The TV was in the next room. A local news   
channel was flashing images of a dark parking lot, an abandoned car, a   
stretcher with a white sheet over it. Some part of me remembered Todd, but I   
was too distracted by the pounding of my heart that I couldn't even think it   
through.  
And then I saw him.  
In the dark shadows of the corner, completely hidden from sight, a figure   
loomed. I only noticed him because he moved slightly. I know I lost my breath,   
though I don't remember screaming. We were both still, me on the verge of   
collapsing, him skulking in the shadows. And then I finally asked him those   
stereotypical questions:  
"Who are you?! What do you want?!"  
He laughed. Kind of. It wasn't a real laugh; it was more of a scoffing,   
sneering kind of laugh. And it was at that moment that some remote wrinkle in   
my brain set alarm bells off in my head. I started to shrink inside of myself.   
And as I stood there, panting, my vision blurring with fear, he came out of the   
shadows. The pale TV light filtered over him, lending an eerie glow to his bone-  
white flesh. He had a mop of black hair that masked part of his face and fell   
around his shoulders. He raked a hand back through it, pulling it away,   
allowing me to see him in all his horrific glory.  
My expression must have said it all.  
"Boo," he rasped.  
It was JD.  
  
  
*October 13, 1991*  
Dear Diary,  
JD is alive. How?! God!   
My legs gave way beneath me the moment I saw his eyes. I sunk to floor and   
stayed there, staring up at him, this looming demon from hell in his black   
trench coat, with his missing finger. And he just watched me, a twisted look of   
amusement plastered on his face.   
He was eating it up.  
"Darling," he said, as I sat there humbled before him. "I have been dreaming of   
this moment since I spread myself half way across Ohio state."  
I wanted to cry. His voice hurt my ears. It was a voice I had longed to bury in   
the recesses of my subconscious. Though, apparently, my attempts at   
psychotherapy were all in vain.   
Here was my curse standing before me once again.   
But how?  
"Bet you have a lot of questions running through your pretty little head, eh   
Veronica?"  
I said nothing; I just sat there, my eyes welling up with tears. My entire life   
since April 1989 flashed before my eyes. I saw the funeral, his father, our   
baby. I couldn't say anything; I actually had to think to breathe. It had   
taken 2 years to get JD even remotely behind me. 2 long years of brooding and   
justifying, and philosophizing, of going through the physical and psychological   
havoc of having his baby and then giving him up. I wanted to laugh and cry at   
the same time.  
JD lit a cigarette.  
"How?" I managed to say, "I saw you die."  
He took a long drag, and then crouched down in front of me, grinning.  
"Correction, dearest, you thought you saw me die." For a moment he looked truly   
jubilant, and then something dangerous moved in his face.   
Something psychotic.  
"You see, Veronica, my greatest delight now is seeing the realization in your   
eyes. You thought you'd won, hadn't you? Standing up there on the steps, so   
cool with you cigarette--I knew then that I would live for this moment. You're   
not the hero Veronica, you get no more one-liners, no more walks into the sunset   
with fat people in wheelchairs. Don't wait for any credits to role because the   
story's not over. You may think you're smart, but I have news for you:  
I'm smarter."  
There was fury dancing behind his malevolent eyes, fluctuating in that voice of   
his. After all I had gone through: forgiving him, romanticizing him, having his   
baby, here he was, pissed as hell . . . at me.  
He stood up, looming over me. He was taller, broader, stronger, his voice   
deeper. He was dressed head-to-toe in black, like the grim reaper. Only his   
face and his hands gleamed white. My eyes fell across his disfigured stump of a   
finger. He saw me glance at it.  
"Pretty isn't it?" He sneered. "That's a point for you. That and the abdomen   
shots. I was breathing blood for weeks." He took another long drag on the   
cigarette, the tip glowed orange.   
"My turn." He growled.  
His eyes bore into me; I saw his chest heaving with some sort of triumphant   
rage.  
He was on a vengeance trip.  
I was in danger.  
"How did you do it?" I asked. I couldn't believe it, I just kept seeing him   
over and over again--and the explosion, no one could have survived that.   
No one.   
But I had to talk to him, had to reason with him. I would play into his divine   
retribution game and hope that I could survive to tell the tale. I had done so   
much to try and erase my animosity towards him--for a time, while I was   
pregnant; I even felt that I had fallen back in love with him; that there was a   
bond between us. Somehow I had deluded myself into seeing JD as this lost soul   
who needed help and never got any. He became the victim, the one society had   
failed, had let slip through the cracks. I hated myself for not reaching out to   
him the way I could have . . . for not saving him. But now, here, I realized I   
was wrong. JD knew what he was doing. He always knew.  
He shook his head mockingly.   
"Magicians don't tell their secrets, my love. Fooled you, though didn't it. It   
fooled everyone. An extravagant death, a death so impossible to survive that no   
one would even THINK to give it a second look--it was perfecto! The extreme   
sure made an impression this time."  
He was elated. I started to slink back. What vengeful fantasies had he   
indulged in these past two years? What did he plan to do to me?  
"Jesus Veronica!" His voice kept getting louder; his words loaded with hidden   
threats. I looked around and wondered where we were. Where did he bring me?   
Could I scream for help? Would anyone come? It occurred to me that before now   
I never truly feared JD. I was mad at him, annoyed, I hated him, I wanted him   
out of my life. But did I fear him?   
JD continued ranting.  
"Do you actually think, I mean do you actually believe that you are the only one   
who ever wanted me dead?!?! Grow a brain, darling; I've been in this line of   
work for a long time. You were as gullible as the rest of them! One look, one   
FUCK and I had you doing everything! Just like the others. There was only   
one catch: I actually cared for you. We were on the same wavelength, you and I.   
But you betrayed me."  
"JD you were killing people!"  
"People you hated."  
"There's a difference between-"  
JD interrupted me: "Wishing someone dead and feeding them a wake-up cup full of   
Liquid Drainer? Oh, Veronica, you're so predictable. It's beautiful, it really   
is."  
I frowned at him. I was against the wall and he was loving it.  
"You know what they say, Veronica, if you want something done you have to do it   
yourself. But you were too chicken shit, weren't you? You needed me. Kurt and   
Ram spread every X-rated rumor they could about you. And what would you have   
done? Bitch and moan? Walk up to them in the caf, whine, roll your eyes.   
Heather would have skewered you by then; you were fucked without me, and you   
know it. Besides, I saw the pleasure in your eyes when you pulled that trigger.   
Only your own faults took that pleasure away from you."  
How could I contend with his psycho reasoning? I wanted to run, I wanted to get   
away. Fuck every regret I ever had about JD and I. There was nothing   
salvageable; he was never anything but crazy. My eyes darted all around the   
room; shadows were everywhere. But there was a door, next to the TV, there was   
a door. If I lunged for it, could I make it? Where would it lead? What if it   
was a closet or something?  
Suddenly JD swooped at me from the darkness, he got right up in my face and   
sneered at me, smoke pouring out of his nostrils. I half expected his eyes to   
glow red.  
"So now that I have you Veronica," he growled. "What am I going to do with you?"  
  
  
*October 13, 1991*  
Dear Diary-  
I may not survive this. And if I don't, I want someone to know what happened.   
Anyone. I'm in shock, and I don't know what to do. We're in the middle of   
nowhere. How do I know this?  
I lunged for the door.  
JD had his back to me. The news was still on, still rolling footage of Todd's   
murder. I asked JD why he had saved me, and he said:   
"I couldn't let HIM have MY fun."  
That's when I ran, I just darted so fast I didn't even feel my legs moving. Any   
minute I expected JD to pounce on me. My hands fell around the doorknob,   
twisting desperately--I opened it and fell into dark, cold night. My thoughts   
were so frenzied I barely had a chance to realize I had made it out. There were   
trees everywhere, and I just started running. My breath burned in my throat, my   
heart pounded--I felt like I was running on air. I didn't know if JD was   
following me or not, I just needed a road, a house, anything. But there was   
nothing, nothing but forest. I kept throwing glances over my shoulder, trying   
to see if JD had followed me--I expected to see him, all in black, his black   
coat flying in the wind like a demented bat out of hell. It was just so dark.   
Branches were scratching at my face, tearing at my eyes, it hurt so bad. And   
then I heard the stream up ahead. Momentarily I stopped, rubbing my stinging   
eyes, wondering if the wetness pouring down my cheeks was blood or tears. My   
breath was heaving; I had nothing left.  
That's when he tackled me.   
The full force of his weight came crashing on top of me and I toppled to the   
ground. My face smacked into the dirt, the flesh on my knees tore against the   
rocks and acorns beneath me. I cried out, and JD roughly pulled at me, forcing   
me to roll over. I could taste blood. He straddled me, pinning my arms against   
my sides with his legs. I had a flash of the boiler room.  
"Where are you going, Veronica, huh?!?" His voice grated against my ears. I   
felt my chest caving under his weight, I couldn't breathe, he was suffocating   
me.  
"JD wait," I gasped.  
"What!" He yelled.  
"Wait!" I cried again.  
"What!"  
"You're a," I couldn't get the words out.  
"I'm a what Veronica? What words of wisdom do you have for me now? Where is   
that stinging wit you pride yourself on, hmm? Kinda hard to talk without   
breath, now isn't it?"  
"Father," I managed to say.  
"You don't have time for a priest, Veronica, but I'll hear your confession if   
you'd like." He pushed on me harder; I gasped desperately, shaking my head. At   
the time it seemed like the only thing that would make him stop--telling him   
about the baby. At the very least he'd be curious.  
"You're father,"   
No, that was wrong. I couldn't get him to understand.  
"My father knew, Veronica. Don't you remember that day you came to the house?   
Snooping around my room? What were you looking for? I wonder. Maybe you   
thought I scribbled down all my teen-angst bullshit in a diary the way you do?   
Sorry darling, I have other methods of venting. This one is working just   
nicely." He pressed down on me harder. I was gagging. It was now or never, I   
mustered the last of my lung capacity.  
"You're a father!" I cried.  
I felt him go still. He was curious. Easing up the pressure on my chest he   
leaned close to my face.  
"You're lying." He said slowly, like a cat toying with its prey.  
I shook my head, gasping hard. "No," I said, "You're a father, I had your baby   
two years ago. It was a boy, he looks just like you."  
He smirked, raising his eyebrows.  
"Creative, I'll give you that."  
His father never told him.  
"I had him by caesarian, JD, I have the scar to prove it."  
I tried to wriggle my arm free, he didn't let me. Instead he lit a match and   
pulled my shirt up to my neck to see for himself. He looked even more demonic in   
the flickering shadows. I watched his face study my scar; he wasn't sure what   
to believe, though his skepticism was obvious. He eased up on me a little more   
and I sucked in the air thankfully.   
Then he said:  
"You look good like that." The devil was in his voice. It occurred   
to me that he was staring at more than just my scar, I felt naked and   
helpless against him. I got nervous, my heart resumed its thudding.  
"The scar looks kosher, Veronica," he purred, shaking out the match. We were   
left in darkness. I felt his cold fingers glide against my stomach, brush   
against my breast.   
"But how do I know the kid's mine, hmm?"  
"You're gonna have to trust me, JD."  
He laughed, "You DO have a sense of humor!"  
He leaned in close; I could smell the smoke on his breath.  
"I'm touched," he whispered, sounding amorous. "You didn't abort it."   
I shrunk against the unyielding ground, but I couldn't escape him. His lips   
closed over mine, tenderly, passionately. It wasn't one of those rambunctious   
JD-kisses he had favored toward the end of our relationship, it was something   
else. I didn't protest; I was afraid he'd go back to crushing me. It was hope   
for me; it bought me time. Perhaps he wanted to reconcile? Maybe he just   
wanted closure? But he was on the edge, completely unpredictable, and I didn't   
know what to do.   
I let him kiss me. I think in some twisted way he liked the taste of blood on my   
split lip. Though I didn't have much choice, did I? Once upon a time I thought   
it was a weakness of his, his constant attempts to win me back by forcing   
himself on me. Some psychological dilemma, some craving for love and affection,   
but now I wasn't sure. He was more manipulative than I'd ever imagined him to   
be. I didn't even know how long he'd been watching me, planning, waiting for   
just the right moment to strike. It could have been years.  
He started sucking on my neck, his fingers pushed under my bra, cupped   
my breast. I flushed with some masochistic sort of pleasure. No, I could not   
possibly be attracted to him now, not after this. Some part of my mind was   
positive he wanted to kill me. If I told him that he was the father of my   
child, then there was just a sliver of hope he would keep me around long enough   
to hear the tale . . . for his own amusement.  
Again his lips captured mine, and I found myself kissing him back. I've since   
convinced myself it was out of fear. But for just a moment I know I had a flash   
of that first night, that night we played croquet. I remember how exciting he   
was to me then, my sly demon-lover. How I savored his weight above me. He was   
such a contrast to the petty misery that was my life. Little did I know then   
that he was the very definition of misery. My misery.  
His hands pawed at my legs, pulling at my skirt, dragging it up over my thighs.   
He tore my underwear.  
JD was a true predator. He loved the kill, but he loved the hunt more.   
He lay against me, and the shifting of his body gave me just enough leeway to   
free my arms. But he grabbed them quickly, clasping both my wrists in his one   
four-fingered hand and pinning them above my head. I felt his eyes on me; I   
tasted the copper of my blood on his lips.  
"If you try anything, I'll kill you," he purred.  
"JD, this is rape," I said.  
He hesitated.   
"No Veronica, this is love."  
  
  
*October 13, 1991*  
Dear Diary,  
All's fair in love and war? Is that how it goes?  
Then I suppose JD is playing by the rules. But is it love or is it war?  
It can't be love. Yet it's become clear to me that as much as JD hates me (or   
thinks he does) part of him still believes we were meant for each other--on "the   
same wavelength" as he put it. It was strange being with him again. Yielding to   
his overpowering sex. I know it's a power trip--that he's now professed himself   
as the dominant one. Looking at it psychologically he wants me to be inferior,   
he wants to show me that he's the one in control. The one with power. But when   
you're there on the ground, sweating against each other, remembering how it used   
to be . . . once upon a time we really were partners. It's somehow different   
then. Not to mention I spent 9 months straight carrying his baby and longing   
for his company.   
I think he wanted to see how far I was willing to go to save my own life. He   
wanted to see if my pride and self-respect would get in the way. I think the   
bastard is pleased with this outcome.  
I'm weirded out, but not in the way I should be. Did you ever hear the one   
where the kidnapped begin to identify with their kidnappers? How about the one   
where the ex-girlfriend begins to fool herself again about the father of her   
child? No. It's not going to happen.   
Nonetheless, I lay there in that floating-after-sex state, but I was angry.   
Angry at how I betrayed myself, angry at how my body was treacherous. I felt him   
in my veins and I wanted to scream.   
JD was amused.   
I think he expected me to fight him, and when I did the opposite, when I moaned   
in his arms, he gained yet another victory. For that I hate him. He stayed   
above me for a few moments after we'd finished, still pinning me to the ground   
with nothing more than his own body. Our breaths mingled, and I felt his eyes   
searching me, trying to guess my next move. This was a game to him. We were no   
longer in high school, society was no longer the enemy. I was.   
He wanted revenge.  
I felt him smile, I didn't even have to see it, I felt him do it. And then he   
got off of me, and for the first time since he tackled me, since he split my lip   
on the ground and scraped my knees on the rocks, I was free of him. He wanted   
my reaction. He had conquered me, and was now awaiting the outcome of his   
deeds.  
I slapped him. I slapped him as hard as I could, and then in a flurry of   
movement I just started throwing my fists at him, punching at him, trying to do   
some sort of damage. He caught my hands and struggled with me briefly, throwing   
me again to the ground. But I was relentless; I was infuriated. I hated us   
both. If I were on the outside looking in I'd say we did belong together, that   
we deserved each other. But I'm not; I'm fucked.   
Somewhere in hell Heather Chandler is laughing at me.   
JD and I wrestled until I bit him; I just sunk my teeth right into his arm,   
determined to draw his blood the way he had drawn mine. It pissed him off, but   
I would not let go. I had him writhing in pain for just a moment before he   
finally tore me off, and I took his flesh with me. For that he smacked me hard.   
I hit the ground and the last thing I remember was him talking to me as if I   
were conscious, lifting me up, and draping me over his shoulder.  
  
  
*October 13, 1991*  
Dear Diary,  
I woke up back in the house, but I was on the floor this time, like JD had just   
dropped me there without a care in the world. I was still a dirty, bloody mess.   
Everything ached, and part of me could still feel JD's wetness between my   
thighs. He was mad at me but I didn't care. Why should I? Look   
what he'd done. Kidnapping, rape, attempted murder, premeditated murder, he was   
a demon. My demon, my own personal demon. Please God don't tell me my life of   
popularity disorders and fashion dilemmas justified such a plague as JD. But   
it's not that is it? It's what I get for being stupid. JD is my punishment for   
Heather and Kurt and Ram. So what is his punishment?  
I dragged myself off the floor and hobbled into the hallway, searching for some   
sort of blunt object I could bash in his head with. This was the boiler room   
all over again.  
A bright light flooded my path; I squinted, blind. Instinctively I held my arms   
up in defense, half expecting JD to fly at me from out of nowhere, to finish   
what he had started. Why didn't he just kill me? Why didn't he just get it   
over with?  
"Ah! You're awake!"  
I heard his raucous voice before I even saw him. As my vision cleared, I   
realized he was standing in the bathroom under the bright fluorescent light with   
his leg up on the toilet. His scraggly long black hair was pulled back into a   
ponytail and he had on a black tank top and black jeans. It took me a moment   
before I realized what he was doing. I watched as he pulled the thread taught,   
then drew the needle back and pierced the flesh on his arm again. I had bitten   
him that badly.  
"You know, Veronica," he said without even looking at me. Blood was running   
down his pale arm. "I think you've left more scars on my body than I've left on   
your mind."  
He glanced up and raised his eyebrows, smiling like the devil.  
I grimaced as he laced another stitch without even flinching. For a moment I   
wondered how much evil JD had truly done in his life, both before and after I'd   
met him.  
"Why are you keeping me here?" I asked.  
He looped the thread.  
"I'm not finished with you yet," he replied, reaching for the scissors. I had a   
vision of impaling him with them.  
"You see Veronica," his eyes found me, dark and menacing. "I'm mad as hell, and   
we've only just started."  
He clipped the thread, but continued to hold the scissors nonchalantly in his   
hands. "You brought up an interesting point before, and I have to admit, I'm   
curious."  
I knew what was coming. He stepped into the doorway not two feet from me. The   
light threw dark shadows into his face.  
"So tell me, where is my son now?"   
  
  
*October 13, 1991*  
Dear diary,  
I have been wracking my brain. For the preservation of my own life, I let it   
slip that I had had JD's child. Only in the immediate aftermath has it occurred   
to me what a mistake that was. Once upon a time, I fantasized that JD and I   
were normal. That we were in love, that we were going to have this baby   
together. God, what a fucking idiot I was! Even if it was a fantasy, the   
reality is so much more fucked. I was forced to "kill" JD once, now I'll kill   
him the first chance I get. By telling him about the baby I wanted to throw him   
off his current plan of action: my slow and agonizing demise. And I did that,   
but now he wants something else.  
He stared at me in the hallway as I shrunk against the wall, idly wondering how   
much bigger than me he seemed. My head pounded, my knees were raw.  
"What a father I would make, hmm?" He said, taunting me, turning my own plan   
against me.  
"I'm not going to tell you where he is, JD." I said, finding some sort of   
strength in the midst of such defeat. I was going to martyr myself for my   
child . . . and then that child would grow up to be JD all over again, and some   
poor girl twenty years from now would be in my position because she had pissed   
him off.  
Like father like son.  
"I didn't think you would," JD replied, flashing me that grin. "But that doesn't   
mean I won't find him." He clipped the air with the scissors and I flinched.  
"What do you want with a child?" I growled, "Fatherhood would put a serious   
glitch in all of your lovely plans."  
He cornered me against the wall, "Veronica, you put a serious glitch in all my   
plans."  
I met his gaze, trying not to show my fear. We were motionless for a long   
moment.  
"You don't know how irritated I am by you," he growled, stroking my face with   
the tip of the scissors. I saw the shiny silver glint in the corner of my eye,   
my flesh tingled against the icy metal, my breath caught in my throat.   
JJD was enthralled by the terror he induced.  
"It's a pity I didn't learn my lesson back in high school." He said. "For awhile   
there I would have done anything for you."  
"You mean kill anyone for me."  
My defiance upset him, I could see the anger twist in his face. Without warning   
he scraped the scissors across my cheek, I cried out and cupped the burning   
flesh, blood wet my palm.  
Frustrated he yelled at me, or at nothing in particular, and grabbed me by the   
hair. I screamed, but he dragged me down the hall.  
"You know what I should have done that day, Veronica!?" He hollered, paying my   
anguished struggles no attention. I had no choice but to follow him.  
"I should have used the REAL bomb on my chest, and I should have taken YOU with   
me! Nothing would have delighted me more than to see that arrogant look on you   
face get wiped off by an explosion! I would have dragged you back into that   
fucking gym, and we would have been the best pep assembly that godforsaken   
school had ever seen!" He paused. "Actually, I should have beat the living   
shit out of you in the boiler room, and tied the bomb to YOUR chest! Oh   
officer," he mocked, "Veronica was sooooo upset after Heather's death-they   
were BEST FRIENDS you know--she decided to take everyone with her! Now THAT,   
would have been funny!"  
"JD stop!" I cried.  
His ranting had gotten worse over the years. And he had gotten more brutal.  
"Well, so the plan's changed a little," He continued with phony regret. "It's no   
longer a high school that's gonna blow, it's a little house in the middle of the   
woods. And so what if I didn't get to roast all my wonderful classmates--at   
least I get to barbecue you! Bet you're regretting shit now, aren't you,   
darling?!"  
We reached another room off the den and he slammed me against the wall, still   
clutching me by the hair--"Only this time, I'M gonna watch. Got a cigarette   
Veronica?"  
Tears were streaming down my face, "JD please," I begged. He pulled a set of   
keys out of his pocket and started to flip through them with his good hand.  
"Please what, my lovely?"  
I tried to claw at him.  
"You don't think these last two years have been hard for me too?!" I screamed.   
"You think you're the only one that is mad as hell!?? I DID love you once!!   
Goddamn you JD; I wanted to be with you! And then you turned fucking psycho!!   
You're a complete mental case--you're a goddamn murderer--and you're the father   
of my child!!! I carried that baby to term JD! OUR baby!! I didn't have to but   
I did, it was the only piece of you that I had left, and I wanted it to have a   
better life than you did!"  
"My life is grrrreat!" He sneered. "In fact, at this very moment, it's better   
than ever!!"  
I had to get to him, I knew that if I kept talking he might just listen. JD's   
intellect, his need to unravel motives, it was his weakness sometimes. And   
maybe, just maybe, he had a heart--a wounded one, but a heart just the same. I   
tried to appeal to it.  
"That day I came to your house, I was looking for something. I was looking for   
you. Something that would allow me to see who you were better, something good   
to tell your son if ever he asked."  
He faced me, glaring.  
"Touching." He growled. "Face it Veronica, you fucked up, and now it's   
payback."  
He unlocked the door next to me and yanked it open.  
"In you go!" He laughed, and threw me inside. Then he slammed the door shut and   
I was in darkness. The last thing I heard were keys jangling as they locked me   
in.  
  
  
*October 13, 1991*  
Dear Diary,  
I was in here for a few hours until I heard JD again. He thumped against the   
door and said my name in a sneering, sing-song sort of way.  
"VeRONicA--Still alive?" He asked; his voice muffled. I didn't answer him.  
"Of course you are. I've been doing some thinking, Veronica. It would really be   
nice to see the child of my loins. That is, assuming you're not lying to me.   
You wouldn't lie to me Veronica, would you? I didn't think so. Tell me, are   
your parents still living in Sherwood? They don't change do they, they wouldn't   
move away even if you were the disgrace of the town. Pregnant out of wedlock at   
16, tsk tsk. I've decided to pay them a visit, ask about their grandson, etc   
etc. I'll be polite of course, unless they force me not to be."  
I think my mouth hit the floor. He wasn't lying; he was going to find the baby,   
and he was going to kill my parents in the process. I had no way to warn them.   
My eyes started to swell.  
"But you're not going to come with me. I guess you know that already, don't you?   
Don't worry though, I've arranged for a friend to keep you company . . ."  
Suddenly a TV went on in my room. It was fixed in the wall above the door; I   
had no idea it was there. The dull light hurt my eyes at first--but when I got   
used to it I saw I was indeed in a cell. A cell JD had built for me. There was   
no way out except for the door--and it was completely locked.   
I looked back to the television and realized that what was on the screen was the   
room outside. JD must have had a video camera with him, because suddenly he was   
on the screen waving to me. I'd like to introduce you to your friend and mine,   
Veronica, if you'd just follow me here." The camera shook as he got behind it   
and started to walk around the room. He stopped in front of a table and aimed   
down. I gasped.   
There was the bomb.  
"Look familiar?" He asked off camera. "It's the same one from Westerburg, I've   
been saving it for you. But since I'm not a complete monster, Veronica, I gave   
you a lot more time than you actually deserve. You've got 72 hours on here." He   
zoomed in on the red numbers. "That's three days, my sweet little Stanford   
genius. I really don't know how long it's going to take me to fly to Ohio, talk   
to your parents, and find my son. If it takes less than three days, you're in   
luck, because I'll be back and we'll figure out some family planning. But if it   
takes longer," he broke into song, "Que Sera Sera, whatever will be, will be."   
Then he laughed, "Credits role, darling, you're dead. So until then, sit back   
and relax--I know I know, no bathroom, no food, no water, three days--what can I   
say, this isn't the Hilton!"  
He leaned into the camera again, and I found myself staring at him upside-down.   
"Sit tight, my love, and cross you're fingers--that's something I can't do."  
He held his bad hand up to the camera and searched for his missing finger with   
his pointer. I heard him snicker. "Good luck!"   
And then he was gone.  
  
  
*October 13, 1991*  
Dear Diary,  
The camera's been on ever since. All I have to keep me company in my last hours   
is a TV screen with a ticking bomb on it. The clock is at 70 hours 13 minutes   
and counting. I'm going to die. This is not how imagined it, I don't think   
anything has sunken in yet. I'm terrified. I don't know what to do. I've been   
replaying these events over and over again in my head, writing this imaginary   
diary, convincing myself that someone, somehow will help me. And yet, I know   
I'm doomed, that my parents are doomed, that my child is doomed. It seems that   
my only hope is for JD to come back--though I know he won't. I know it's over.  
"So JD, now that you're dead, what are you going to do with your life?"  
  
  
  
Elisa Higgins Part II: "Mad As Hell" (c) 2000  
scarlet@li.net  
  
Next: Part III: "Junior"  



	3. Junior

Part III: "Junior"   
By Elisa Higgins (c) 2001  
scarlett@li.net  
  
  
MENTAL NOTE: VERONICA HAS 69 HOURS TO LIVE.  
  
Standing in the center of society's beating heart involves a certain amount of   
cerebral pain. There is that much more pain involved in watching some feral   
child run circles around his mother, hollering at the top of his lungs, his   
voice so high-pitched and irritating that every dog in the city should have come   
ripping through the terminal at any given moment.   
Now and again the kid's eyes darted in my direction. I could feel him looking me   
up and down, trying desperately to see through my sunglasses, wondering why I   
wore black leather gloves. I know the slicked-back ponytail made him think. I   
could see the gears of his imagination working, and I grinned at him.  
The airport was a bitch.   
Every schmuck and his grandmother were lugging around matching suitcases,   
scanning the monitors for what gate led to what, rushing around trying to find   
their flights with worried lines of panic etched into their faces. Half of them   
couldn't navigate their way out of a closet let alone an airport terminal. And   
there I stood, sipping my bad coffee (which was too hot and didn't have enough   
caffeine in it to keep a field mouse awake) watching that darling child go round   
and round and round and I wondered: What would happen if someone suddenly   
shouted:   
"BOMB!"  
The temptation was irresistible.   
It's well known that in the back of everyone's little sputtering mind there's   
this lurking fear: certain death exists at the airport. You've got your   
terrorist acts and your plane crashes, and that lone individual that decides to   
go postal, blowing off heads at random.   
It was all quite amusing really.   
There was a nervous twitch in the feral kid's mother as she eyed my black duffel   
bag. And in all honesty I should have gone right up to her, right into her face   
so that she could smell the cigarettes on my breath, and say:   
"It's not nice to stereotype."  
If she only knew.  
But truly, where's the fun in that? Then she'd flag down the nearest security   
guard, and they'd haul my ass to some secluded room, rummage through my stuff,   
get some closet homo named Paul to strip search me --just for kicks of course-  
and come up with . . . nothing.   
You people think I'm stupid don't you?   
There's already too much hassle at the airport, tickets and lines and   
credentials and life insurance. Attempting to tote some lethal weapon onto the   
plane is a snag in my day I really don't need. I'm just not much in the mood.   
Besides, only movie stars do things like that . . . ahem.   
But what about chaos, you ask? Chaos is great when it's happening to somebody   
else. Did I forget to mention that? Oops. As for static--static is the spice   
of life! But try telling that to Veronica right now.   
So here's the million dollar question folks: What is darling little Veronica up   
to at this very moment? Let's do a run-through . . .   
IF -emphasis on the "if"- some Hollywood screenwriter decided to tackle the   
scenario, we would find our Heroine (69 hours and counting) filing away the   
hinges on her door with some Revlon Deluxe nail file she had hidden up her ass   
the whole time. (Just in case her exxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx-boyfriend decided to lock   
her up with the very bomb she thought had killed him).   
--Here's where we pause to admire the beauty of irony.--  
It would take her no time at all to hack free of her prison (this was a super   
nail file, mind you, heavy duty steel for those times when you just don't have   
the patience to be perfect). And as fate would have it, she stumbles outside to   
steal a six cylinder Trans-Am from some poor couple making out in the woods.   
Immediately following would be a miraculous high-speed chase down I-95 (which   
would take her all of ten minutes when with traffic it took me nearly three   
hours) where she would arrive on the scene just in time to come face to face   
with her arch nemesis on his flight to Ohio. (We need a spectacular finish here   
darlings,) so after a heroic fight, and a ludicrous delay on my part to tell her   
that I've won and she's lost-- she would then proceed to shove a bomb down the   
front of my pants (and with some catchy one-liner) parachute into the sky just   
me and my family jewels blow to Kingdom Come.  
Try not.   
The truth of the matter is this: Veronica really just wishes I at least had the   
decency to leave her toilet paper . . . which I didn't.   
So where are we off to you ask? (And I admonish you for not paying attention.)   
We're going back to Sherwood. According to the dearly-not-yet-departed, I have   
a mongrel of my own loins roaming around the planet somewhere, and damn me if   
I'm not dying to know what the little bugger looks like! He should be almost   
three by now. Ah the fond memories of being three . . . give me a minute here,   
I'll think of something . . . childhood, childhood, something fond about   
childhood.   
Nope, nothing's registering.   
So who's to blame when someone like myself cannot remember a single solitary   
moment when they were ecstatic to be a child? That's part of what I aim to   
discover. (And you thought I was looking for my son just for the hell of it! Of   
course, he'd better not be like feral child over there or he would join his   
mother sooner rather than later.)   
The circling kid stopped short as if he heard me. So how could I resist? His   
mother had her back turned (and people wonder why so many children disappear) so   
I beckoned to him.  
"Hey, kid, c'mere."   
Simple enough, and he listened!   
"Wanna see something?"   
I knew he was actually scared shitless of me--staring at the way my eyebrows   
arched over the jet-black rims of my sunglasses, staring most of all at the   
leather gloves on my hands, as if I were some mob hit man--or just your humble   
archetypal villain.   
Which I am.   
I was too delighted by the way his eyes bugged out of his head. He knew he   
wasn't supposed to talk to me--that his mother had given him that age-old line   
"Never talk to strangers." But here lies the essence of temptation. This kid was   
the true son of Adam and Eve, and we all know how THEY faired against the snake.   
So he nodded and I held up my hand, slowly tugging at the fingertips of my glove   
as though I were unveiling some great secret. And he watched with undying   
anticipation until--VOILA!--my lovely hand was revealed in all its mutilated   
glory. His eyes glued to the stub of my middle finger (which I wiggled for him)   
and his face twisted until he was just about as ugly as his mother. Then he   
let out a scream and charged back in her direction, half knocking her over as he   
wrapped around her legs. She hollered at him and shot me a horrified look.   
I smiled.  
Oh, thank you Veronica for small favors.  
Hold that thought--they're calling my flight.  
  
* * *  
  
MENTAL NOTE: VERONICA HAS 67 HOURS TO LIVE.  
  
There is something living in airplane food. Have you ever noticed that just   
when you look away, something ruptures the surface of the slop they call mashed   
potatoes? And you snap your head back to catch it, but like the cunning   
substance it is, it only moves when you're not looking?   
I grinned at the woman next to me; she adjusted her glasses and tried her best   
to look comfortable. She appeared to be one of those religious types that had   
something the size of Antarctica shoved up her ass. To her I was probably Satan   
in disguise, come to lure her into sinful temptation. Actually, if Satan were   
roaming the earth, he probably would look a hell of a lot like me.   
She tried to crawl into the book she was reading to hide from my view.   
Or perhaps she was worried about the creature in my potatoes?   
I dumped my tray into the hands of the nearest stewardess (the only thing you   
can do with airline food is play with it) and quickly ordered one of those   
little bottles of Jack Daniel's.   
The best part about flying is flying high.  
The stewardess looked charmed (don't ask me why, I can only guess there's   
something about the eyebrows that gets them.) She reached into her cart and   
pulled out that tiny mouthful of amber liquid I do so enjoy. The woman next to   
me watched, I suppose 'thou shall not drink' is one of the Ten Commandments.   
Someone should let her know that on planet earth it's legal to drink alcohol on   
a plane . . . as long as you're not the pilot.  
I felt compelled.   
The stewardess swaggered on to the next guy and I turned to my companion.  
"Greetings and Salutations."  
No, that never gets old.  
"Hello," she answered stiffly. Her comfort level dropped even further. Satan   
was speaking to her. I flashed the eyebrows. She managed a tight-lipped smile   
and shifted, hoping like hell I wasn't about to commence upon a conversation.   
Which, of course, was all the more reason to do so. My eyes zoned in on the book   
in her hand.   
Moby Dick.  
"Ah, Melville," I sighed. She glanced down surprised, as if she hadn't expected   
an intelligent word to come out of my mouth.  
"You've read it?"  
My grin broadened.  
"Many times."  
"Really?" She sounded suspicious. "I find it quite complex."  
"Of course!" I sneered, "That's the beauty of it! Melville's elaborate language   
gives total shapelessness to the work's allegorical importance, so every man can   
basically translate its symbolic significance to whatever suits his needs!"   
She looked at me cross-eyed, and I watched her brain try to compute what I had   
just said. It took her a moment. I supposed she was reading it just because   
someone mentioned that old Moby himself was Leviathan from the Bible.   
"So what do you find most compelling?" She asked. "The blatant evil of the   
whale or the blatant evil of Ahab?"  
I had to laugh. She was blatantly calling me evil. Oh, if she only knew. She   
was definitely one of those pseudo-intellectual types. They've got MA's and   
MS's coming out of their asses but ask them what they got out of their multi-  
million dollar education, and be prepared to have your brain fried by ignorance.  
"The whale's not evil." I said simply. "He's just out to sink the world. Ahab   
on the other hand, he's an icon in American culture with that pegged leg of his,   
but he's virtually non-existent as a character in the book. Melville wrote him   
as a vehicle for human psychology. Ahab is that line on the application that   
reads 'Your Name here.'"  
"Really." She said again, pushing her glasses up her beak-like nose (librarian   
material that didn't know the first thing about literature.)   
"So you can relate to Ahab?"   
She was now accusing me of being a lunatic.  
"Definitely."  
"And what is your White Whale?"  
"Actually there are quite a few white whales swimming around my ocean;" I   
shrugged, "But they're all inextricably linked."  
"At the end of the book Ahab dies you know."   
This was her method of damnation.  
"Correction," I interjected, "Ahab goes mad and THEN he dies."  
"So is that what you see in your future, young man?"  
Patronizing little monster. I desperately wanted to fry her brain.  
"Been there, done that," I sighed, stretching. "Actually, the whale is my hero;   
he takes them all out."  
"Oh, how interesting." There was a nervous lilt in her voice. She tried to   
delve back into the book, but I wouldn't let her. She was making me nauseous,   
Bible Belt victim that she was, so I decided to hit her with it.  
"You know, in college, I once knew a girl who used Moby Dick as a suicide note."  
"What?!"   
Ah, the horror of the worst sin in The Book.   
"How could she do a thing like that?"  
This was when my morality was supposed to kick in and decode the question. What   
did my lovely companion mean? Did she mean: 'How could she commit suicide?'   
(Suicides go to hell you know.) Or 'How could she use Moby Dick as her sign-  
off?'   
"Easy," I replied, twisting off the small cap of my bourbon bottle.   
"She went through the whole novel and underlined passages that held specific   
meaning for her. If you were to put them in the context of her life you could   
figure out just what miseries she was suffering . . . Basically she thought she   
was an Eskimo."  
The woman's mouth gaped. I could see it in her face: how could I be so cold and   
ignorant of the Good Lord's word? I took a swig of the liquid fire and gave her   
my best shit-eating grin.  
"Cheers."  
But wait! You say. Heather Duke didn't commit suicide! And I reply: How the   
hell would you know? Were you there? Didn't you bother to look past the   
credits? Note I said college, not High School, dearies. Much to Heather's   
dismay, life after Westerburg didn't consist of very much at all.   
Look, I had put all that effort into outlining MOBY DICK! I had to put it to   
use! Do you have any idea how many hours it took to plow through that sucker?   
Give me a little credit here!  
My companion was at a loss.   
The alcohol stewardess passed by again. My eyes gravitated down her body, pink   
polyester skirt stretched taut across her shapely ass. She had long legs too,   
could have been a model in her spare time. I watched as she cast a glance over   
her shoulder, a wisp of blond hair falling free from the bun she had tucked   
under that cute little cap of hers. She bent over to serve some old business   
guy and then continued to push her cart past me to the back of the cabin. My   
eyes followed her the whole way. There was still twenty minutes until touch   
down.  
"Excuse me," I murmured to my Moby Dick-reading friend, "Nature calls."  
I got up from the seat and headed towards the rear of the plane.  
  
* * *  
  
MENTAL NOTE: VERONICA HAS 66 HOURS AND 58 MINUTES TO LIVE.  
  
Three hours without a cigarette is bad enough, three hours without a cigarette   
to smoke after sex is even worse. The stewardess pulled down her skirt and   
shifted her jacket as she tried to squeeze past me and out of the lavatory. She   
beamed in that dizzy way of hers and I half expected her to walk into the cabin   
wall as she attempted to compose herself. I turned to the mirror and pulled the   
rubber band from my hair. She poked her head back in and whispered:  
"We're landing soon."   
"Thank you, dear," I purred.   
She disappeared again, and some trace of her giggle lingered in the potent air   
of the bathroom. Ah, yes, the evidence of horizontal refreshment; or in this   
case, vertical refreshment at 20,000 feet. There was a nice new ruddy glow to my   
face. I combed my fingers back through my hair, pulling free the snags, before   
twisting the whole thing back into a ponytail. The entire 3' x 4' compartment   
reeked of copulation. I'd pay to see the look on the next guy's face that   
walked in here.   
I stepped out, grinning like the devil. The air was much better in the open   
cabin. Down the isle I spotted the feral kid twisting around in his seat to   
bother the man behind him. The gods had taken pity on that child and not sat   
him in front of me.   
Too bad.  
I took my own seat and the woman beside me caught a whiff of the stewardess on   
my skin. I watched her through my shades. Sniff, sniff--it must have been   
long, long time since she had been laid. But eventually the memory kicked in,   
and she recalled some sinful night long ago in the back of her boyfriend's car   
when the windows were all steamed, and the sweat was all over the leather   
interior. Yes, the scent of sex brought her right back to that unfortunate   
moment of weakness.   
She glanced at me, then at the stewardess as she passed by, and a look of utter   
horror came over her face.  
That was it, I had fried her brain.  
One toke over the line you poor fool.  
  
* * *  
  
MENTAL NOTE: VERONICA HAS 64 HOURS TO LIVE.  
  
Home sweet home. Actually, there's no such thing for me. When you've had as   
rootless an existence as I've had home is more like a state of mind than a   
place. It's just that with my recent troubles, Sherwood Ohio holds a certain   
amount of sentimental value. So, truly how could I resist cruising by the old   
school? I was flattered to see that the pavement in front of the steps where I   
blew sky high had been turned into a little memorial garden not only for me, but   
for Heather and Kurt and Ram.   
Touching.  
The parking lot was full. Everyone was inside going through the same mindless   
social turmoil of teenage life. I'm 21 now--I've actually cleared the range of   
adolescence (and you thought I'd be in High School forever). Yet there's part of   
me that yearns for the chaos I once felt while trapped inside those stale   
hallways, the timbre sound of lockers slamming in my ears, the familiar shouts   
of football players, like retards let loose from a mental asylum, echoing off   
the walls. It's funny to think that everything going on in that building at   
this very moment was just like everything that had gone on while I was there.   
Some loser is still trying to feed the world in the cafeteria, some group of   
horrid hairspray addicts were still pretending to be Westerburg royalty. There   
was a new crew of jock assholes date raping cheerleaders at every given chance.   
And those poor lost souls who yearned to be anything but what they were still   
filled the spaces in-between. It was all an on-going cycle; only the cast had   
changed. Hell, there may even have been some loner wandering around in a long   
black coat with a .44 tucked into his pocket . . . no, probably not.   
True genius is like lightning; it never strikes twice.  
But sometimes I think I miss the ambiance of it all. . .  
NAAAAAAAAAAH.  
So instead here I am, two years later, still dead to the world. I suppose you   
continue to question how I actually survived that little bomb stunt of mine? But   
you know what, I'm not going to tell you. Why ruin the illusion? I'm Lazarus   
risen from the dead. (And if I sit in this parking lot any longer I'll be   
tempted to bomb the school again.)  
So off we go, pulling away in our snazzy rental car, driving through cow   
country, passed the Snappy Snack Shack--look I can see my house from here! No,   
I don't live there anymore. How could I? I'm dead. Dear ol' Dad jumped ship   
soon after my funeral . . . I was there, you know. How many chances do you get   
to attend your own funeral? I was the one in the back with the phony beard and   
sunglasses. I was the one watching Veronica wrestle with all her angst and   
bullshit. It was beautiful. Nice flower arrangements too. My lovely father   
thought we should have taken pictures. Everything he knows he learned from me.   
What is it they say?   
The child is the father of the man?   
In that case then I'm looking for my own father aren't I?  
Objective #1 here folks is to find out what Mommy Dearest did with my spawn.   
She said she put him up for adoption. It's just so typical of her isn't it?   
Too guilty to abort it, too weak and selfish to keep it. You do the crime you   
pay the time. You don't see me shirking my fatherly responsibilities do you?   
I'm looking for the little devil!   
Veronica makes me sick.   
And I bet she still thinks that I have feelings for her--that there's some part   
of me that thinks we were MEANT for each other! As the great Mad Max once said:   
"Crap."   
She's so completely disillusioned, and she's always so goddamn dramatic for   
Chrissakes!  
Oh, look we're here. Her house has not changed in the least. Ever wonder how   
she got all her money? Her father is not exactly a rocket scientist, and yet   
here they are, Mommy and Daddy Sawyer, sitting pretty in a house that's as phony   
as they are. No wonder Veronica turned out the way she did. Ahh, but is that   
the reason? Or was she born a bitch? (Once again, my little experiment   
surfaces, but more on that later.) First I must see if The Beavers have any   
information regarding my son.  
  
* * *  
  
MENTAL NOTE: VERONICA HAS 63 HOURS TO LIVE.  
  
Breaking and entering?  
Guilty as charged.  
As luck would have it, I'm all alone in my quest here. Apparently, word of   
Veronica's disappearance has reached home base, so I can only guess that her   
doting parents have flown off to Connecticut to cooperate with the search. It's   
seriously a shame; I could have done the world yet another great favor. But   
much to my chagrin, I have to go at it alone.   
So I walked into her father's study. Stuffed birds mounted on the wall, useless   
trophies scattered about the room, the location of the family safe obvious as it   
protruded through the canvas of that really bad painting. I walked over and   
took the ugly thing down, and sure enough, there was the safe, combination lock   
and all. Was it a safe for moola? Or was it where Daddy Sawyer kept his   
important documents--like adoption papers? And where could he possibly have   
written down the combination? God knows he couldn't have committed it to   
memory--he was an idiot on wheels. So I began rummaging through the desk.   
Drawer by drawer--one of which was locked.   
Way to go to be obvious.   
I grabbed an expensive-looking antique envelope opener and wedged it in the   
crack. It took a bit of pulling a prying to get some leverage; and at one point   
I slipped and caught my finger, nearly puncturing my glove.  
"Damn you and your family," I muttered, and again shoved the dull brass blade   
deeper inside the opening. With one final motion I wrenched the drawer free.   
The inside left a lot to be desired. Part of me was hoping to find some sort of   
sadomasochistic pornography of Mr. and Mrs. Sawyer riding each other with   
various articles of horse regalia--but alas, no such luck. There was absolutely   
nothing here that suggested these people were anymore interesting than a ball of   
wadded up chewing gum.  
The drawer contained tax papers and business papers, and other assorted mind-  
numbing materials, and-oops-a trick bottom. (I swear this guy reads too many   
spy novels.) I lifted the thin piece of wood away to behold a little black   
address book hidden beneath it. Snatching it up, I began flipping through the   
pages.   
I looked under 'lock.'   
Nothing.   
'Combination lock.'   
Nothing.   
I looked under 'safe':  
08-03-78.  
Eureka.   
At least Veronica had some degree of intelligence; the same could not be said of   
her father. Did he actually believe that secret agents were dying to raid his   
study? And if he did, don't you think he would have taken a little more care   
with the combination?   
What am I, a moron?  
The safe openly easily enough with combination in hand. Atop some more   
important looking documents (and a wad of cash) was a 9.MM Parabellum Automatic,   
fully loaded clip and all.  
"There is a god," I mused.  
I lifted the gun (nice balance), pocketed the cash (probably about $1,000 in   
fifties and hundreds) and grabbed the papers:  
  
Crap, crap, crap, Giles & Giles Adoption Agency, Yadda, yadda, yadda, Mr. and   
Mrs. Lance and Lorna Usher adopt baby boy, December 31, 1989, blah, blah, blah   
residence: 264 Pequod Drive, Sherwood, Ohio.  
  
I'm so smart sometimes I hurt my own head.  
And how convenient for Veronica's current predicament that they kept him in the   
same town! If I really made the attempt, I'm sure I could get back before   
detonation.  
But suddenly I remembered that day Veronica came to visit my father. I was   
still a mess at the time, second-degree burns on much of my torso (and there was   
that little detail regarding bullet holes in my abdomen.)   
Yeah, that was a bitch.   
I did drag myself to the funeral, but after that I took some heavy time off,   
lounging around, waiting to recover. Veronica showed up out of the blue one   
day with some sob story I didn't hear at the time (though it turns out that she   
told my pop about the kid--he just never passed the information along to me.   
Dad could never understand my obsession with Veronica, didn't even think she was   
all that attractive--not enough in the cleavage department, he said. I told him   
it was a vengeance thing.) Anyway, so he called out real loud in an attempt to   
warn me that she was coming, but I was in the shower at the time, so I had no   
idea what he was hollering about. Veronica then proceeded to snoop around my   
room, lift a photo from an album I had lying around somewhere, and that was it.   
She took off.  
So, standing here in her empty house, I thought I at least could return the   
favor.  
I traipsed up the stairs to her bedroom--neat and clean as always, the pristine   
princess had to have her interior décor as sophisticated as she believed her   
grand IQ to be. The sight of the window brought back fond memories of strip   
croquet--and I remembered fucking in that bed the night we planned to shoot Kurt   
and Ram.   
"Ich Luge" bullets.  
Sucker.  
And speaking of Grand IQ, (I opened a drawer and removed one of her many   
diaries) genius Veronica had written everything down! As if at the trial some   
prosecutor couldn't just whip out one of those little puppies and say, "Well,   
Miss Sawyer--it's all right here--you openly admit to killing those poor kids!"   
It boggles the mind, really.   
I flipped to a page. Go ahead darling, speak your words of wisdom:  
  
"Dear Diary, (how cute)  
My teen angst bullshit has a body count. (Genius at work.) The   
most popular people in school are dead. (Little thanks to you.) Everybody's   
sad, but it's a weird kind of sad. Suicide gave Heather depth, (perceptive.)   
Kurt a soul, (imagine that!), Ram a brain (it would never happen). I don't know   
what it's given me, but I've got no control over myself when I'm with JD. (Damn   
straight.) Are we going to prom or to Hell? (Speak for yourself, sweetness.)"  
  
I flipped to another page:  
  
" . . . So again let me ask: Do I truly have a responsibility to   
JD for carrying his child? (Dilemmas, dilemmas.) Do I owe it to him to have   
this baby so it can correct the sins of its father? (Sins?) Is his life,   
because it's over, more important than mine? (Always has been, always will be.)  
I'm not going to have an abortion. I'm going to have this child, not for my   
sake, not for the baby's, but for JD's. (How nice of her.)"  
  
I clapped the book closed, and shoved it into my coat pocket. I would   
eventually have to read the whole thing. Maybe it would give me more insight   
into the mind of my former love? Maybe it would melt my black heart, and make   
me rush back to Connecticut to save her from certain death? Naaaaaaaaah.  
  
Burn the evidence; it's the only way to go.   
  
  
* * *  
  
MENTAL NOTE: VERONICA HAS 58 HOURS TO LIVE  
  
I drove out of town to find a room for the night. You see, there always lurks   
that remote possibility that I bump into someone I know around here, and they   
screw up their face and say to me: "Dude, I went to your funeral."   
Yeah, there's a scenario for ya.  
So I motored along to the nearest dirt-cheap motel, paid cash for a one-bed pad   
and cable TV, and ordered a pizza--everything on it, no anchovies. I can't help   
but think that Veronica's getting kind of hungry right about now. It is   
dinnertime after all.   
Let's picture it:  
Her lying there like a broken doll, already dying of dehydration, suffocating   
from the smell of her own piss in the corner of the room, mesmerized by the TV   
screen ticking away the seconds of her life.   
I was glued to a rerun of The Breakfast Club starring Molly Ringworm and that   
guy who makes Billy the Kid movies. But, honestly folks, how long can a person   
actually watch a movie about high school once they've been through the ordeal?   
It's like a painful memory flashback. So I flipped on the porno channel, grabbed   
another slice of pizza and lit up what must have been my tenth cigarette in the   
last two hours.  
The documents I had lifted from Veronica's house were simple enough. Two pricks   
had my son in their possession, they lived on a street named after the ship that   
sunk in Moby Dick and they were pretty wealthy. Apparently the woman was a   
shrink--that's all my kid needs is to be raised by a shrink!   
Oh, God the humanity!  
What?  
What's that you say?  
What do I want with my child anyway?  
(I'm beginning to sound like Dr. Seuss here.)  
Allow me to explain: there is a great debate in the world of psychoanalysis.   
Are people born or are they made? Are we the way we are, because of our   
inherent nature? Or because of the environment that nurtures us? It's an age-  
old question, but current science claims both arguments are valid. So now we   
must ask ourselves: "what are the complex ways in which genetic inheritance and   
life experience interact to mold our behavior?"   
Why do we do what we do?  
I have been led to believe that no slate is ever clean. We are all dealt a hand   
of cards the second the sperm makes it's way to the Promised Land. How we use   
those cards, well that's another story.  
So what cards was my son dealt?   
Did he get the aces from my deck or from Veronica's?   
You see, what I really plan to do is place myself at the very origin of   
psychosocial development. I aim to watch the entire process of mental growth and   
trace it's every outcome. This kid is a Pandora's Box waiting to reveal the   
very way in which we make assholes and non-assholes with the poor tools society   
has given us.   
He is one lucky little bastard to have me for a father; at least I know what I'm   
doing.   
Ah, but you don't think I have the first clue of how to raise a child.   
The basics are elemental--4 a.m. feedings and diaper rash, baby talk and naptime   
(plus, you forget I'm rich and can afford nannies, and he's three, he's already   
potty trained.)--It's the other part that confuses the shit out of people. The   
psychological part. That's where I will do my best work.   
This child is going be my little legacy of havoc to wreak on the world after I'm   
gone. I'm going to make him tough as nails, with an IQ so advanced it won't fit   
in the creases of his little brain! By the time I'm finished with him, he'll   
even be MY superior.  
And another thing, we're going with private tutoring all the way here folks.   
Fuck high school, I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy. (But Veronica's   
already been there, so it doesn't much matter.)   
I am going to craft this kid to perfection.   
(I just have to hope that I'm not too late. That and that he doesn't take after   
his mother.)   
Will he have problems? Sure. Will he rebel? Of course! And I will be there   
to witness everything with open eyes.   
I've been in the field long enough; it's time to see into the heart of things.  
And Jesus, how do they expect anyone to get a decent woody when they play such   
ridiculous elevator music during these porno flicks?!   
I mean really, cum on . . .  
  
* * *  
  
MENTAL NOTE: VERONICA HAS 46 HOURS TO LIVE.  
  
It took me over an hour to find Pequod Drive. How retarded is that?! Sherwood   
isn't that big of a place, and yet there I was roaming around like an idiot,   
refusing to ask for directions.   
Yes, there is that part of me that is still typically male.   
But I forfeited in the end and stopped at the gas station. Turns out, there's   
an East Sherwood and a West Sherwood. I was in the west part--Junior was in the   
east part. Who knew? Once that little kink was ironed out, I was pulling into   
The Usher's driveway in no time.   
It was a giant house; Tudor style like Veronica's, tucked away in a grove all by   
it's lonesome.   
Not a neighbor in sight.   
The family cars were present, which meant that unlike the Sawyers; the good   
doctor and her husband were home.  
This would be fun.  
I bet you're wondering right now how I planned to get my kid back? After all, I,   
as the biological father, was officially deceased. But don't worry, I knew what   
I was doing. I walked right up to the front door and rang the doorbell.  
No answer.  
I did it again.  
No answer.  
I ran out of patience, pulled out the automatic and unloaded two shots at the   
doorknob. Then I was in like Flynn.   
The house was unusually dark for this hour of the day, all the shades were   
drawn, all the curtains closed. There was an odd smell in the air--kind of like   
burnt flesh. Of course I know what burnt flesh smells like! I was the one that   
blew up, remember?   
Something was rotten in Denmark.   
I kept the gun drawn, and slowly started into the foyer. Not a soul in sight,   
everything still, everything silent. The kitchen emerged on my left. Somehow it   
reminded me of Heather Chandler's kitchen, and then I realized that this was the   
same model house. Spooky. (Here is where Veronica would have interjected that   
our ghosts were coming to haunt us.) Though actually, this was a good thing,   
because I knew my way around Heather Chandler's house.  
I sniffed at the air, listening long and hard for any sound whatsoever. I   
thought I heard the pad of soft footsteps above my head, so I approached the   
stairs and started slowly up, watching every shadow. It was ridiculously dark   
by the time I reached the top, I couldn't see shit. And yet the smell grew   
increasingly stronger, more putrid.   
This wasn't normal, but I was up for the challenge.  
So I pulled out my car keys and clicked on the small flashlight I kept attached   
to them, just for situations like this. The hallway I was in stretched straight   
down on either end of me--swallowed up by darkness. There still remained that   
possibility that the Ushers were just really late sleepers on Saturday morning,   
and hadn't gotten up yet; but my Spider Sense told me otherwise. I shone the   
small light into a doorway and caught the edge of a porcelain sink. The   
bathroom. I knew almost instinctively that that was the origin of that foul   
smell. So I approached, my gag reflex on full alert. I knew what this   
was, I had smelled it before, so I wasn't surprised by what I found when I   
stepped inside.  
My little light filtered over the tub at the far end of the room and in small   
snatches I put the picture together. The fat arm dangling over the side, the   
balding head tipped back against the porcelain, eyes wide and staring, mouth   
agape. I followed an electrical cord from the bath water to the socket on the   
wall. This guy looked a little well done to me. My guess was that somehow that   
radio he was listening to decided to join him tub. Maybe it got lonely sitting   
up there on the boudoir all by itself? (Someone should have warned him that   
radios make poor substitutes for Rubber Duckies.) He probably shorted out the   
entire house with this little stunt of his. It occurred to me then: could he   
have been a genuine suicide? After all, I didn't do it.   
In the midst of playing Sherlock Holmes I felt a pair of eyes on my back. I   
whirled around quickly, gun ready. My flashlight found him first. He looked   
like a deer in headlights, but aside from squinting, he didn't budge. Instead he   
pulled out an orange toy gun and aimed it at me. I think my mouth hit the floor   
right about then. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry or start dancing around   
in the sheer joy of it all.  
He was beautiful!  
And Jesus! He had my eyes! And my eyebrows! God, he looked just like me! Only   
smaller. (He had Veronica's mouth though, petit and perfect, dare I say   
pretty.)   
I lowered my weapon the second I saw him, he clicked his own trigger at me and I   
turned to complete mush.  
"Hey there little fella," I said in my sweetest voice.   
I crouched down to make eye contact and held the flashlight over my head to   
illuminate the room a little. It gave him a chance to see me and this strange   
look of recognition came over his face. The thought crossed my mind that things   
couldn't be more perfect.   
"Did you do that?" I asked, motioning to the dead guy behind me.  
Junior hesitated shyly and then in a tiny voice he said:  
"It was an accident."  
(Nice articulation.)  
"Of course it was," I replied grinning proudly from ear to ear. My kid had   
knocked the radio into the tub.  
"And why was it an accident?" I asked.  
The little guy scratched his head with the tip of his gun.  
"He was not my daddy."  
I could have had a heart attack on the spot. My three-year-old had committed   
premeditated murder!  
"Do you know who I am?" I asked.  
Hell it was worth a shot.  
He smiled coyly, like it was a trick question, then he turned and scampered down   
the hallway, his pajama feet scuffing along the polished wood floor. I followed   
him to what I assumed was his room, where he quickly produced a photograph from   
inside a drawer. He knew exactly where it was, despite the darkness, and handed   
it to me. I held the flashlight on it and recognized my eighteen-year-old self   
in the photo. Holy Jesus God this kid was a genius! Here was the very photo   
Veronica had swiped from my room, in the hands of my son who had used it as   
motive for murder.  
"You're Daddy," he said.  
For the first time in my life I was speechless.  
  
* * *  
  
MENTAL NOTE: VERONICA HAS 43 HOURS TO LIVE.  
  
Mission accomplished. Technically speaking. It took us three hours to pack   
everything Junior would need, all the toys and clothes, and toddler necessities.   
I was right, though; he was potty trained.   
No diapers desired, no diapers required.  
And he opened up to me in no time, confessing how he knew I would show up   
eventually. Get this; it seems his darling psychiatrist foster mother believed   
that honesty was the best policy in raising a child. So she told a three-year-  
old that she and her husband were not his real parents! Then she gave him the   
photo of me (he had one of Veronica too) and thus planted the seed in his head   
for what I encountered on my way in here. Apparently, two seconds before he   
knocked the radio into the tub and caused a 4th of July in October, the dead guy   
warned him not to do it. He said it would "electrocute him and he would die."   
Way to go genius.  
And speaking of genius, I have a little sociopathic prodigy on my hands, what   
more could I ask for?!   
His foster mother, dear old Dr. Lorna Usher, was not home at the time being.   
She was on a business trip or something. But if she happened to walk in, I   
planned to shoot her and place the gun in hubby's charred hand.  
The murder/suicide routine.   
Of course there would have to be a note to go along with that, and (as Veronica   
learned too late) I too can do anyone's handwriting just as well as my own.  
Turns out, the good doctor never did show up. So that mess was avoided--but the   
entire situation itself didn't exactly look kosher. Dead husband in the   
bathtub--missing child and his belongings. I found myself scrawling a note   
anyway. After rummaging around in the study I found a nice little handwriting   
sample, and off I went by flashlight. I have to say my plot was twisted, but   
would definitely buy Junior and me all the time we needed to disappear into the   
woodwork.  
So the note went along these lines: Mr. Usher (who as it turns out was one of   
those Bible Belt preachers of fire and brimstone) confesses to his dear wife   
that he thought Junior here was the Spawn of Satan. (Which he is--not that I   
want to seem presumptuous or anything). And because Junior was the Spawn of   
Satan, Mr. Usher took it into his own God-willing hands to send Junior back from   
whence he came (namely Hell). He then proceeded to bury his poor little body   
out in the woods somewhere. But, because our man was your typical criminal   
pussy, he couldn't deal with his sins and offed himself in the bathtub!   
You see, perfecto!  
Based on this confession of infanticide, the authorities would then have to   
start searching the woods pronto (notice I didn't specify WHICH woods) before   
they could begin looking anywhere else for the missing child. It's procedure.   
So the kid disappears with me, everyone else thinks he's dead, and by the time   
anyone figures out the contrary, we'll be long gone.  
  
* * *  
  
MENTAL NOTE: VERONICA HAS 38 HOURS TO LIVE.  
  
"Hey son, how'ya doin."  
(Car phones, gotta love 'em.)  
"Yes, he's here with me now--everything went smoothly, not a kink in the works .   
. . No, no, he wanted to come, he was waiting for me. Yeah, he knows who I am-  
-I guess that makes you grandpa now doesn't it? Well, we don't want to confuse   
the little bugger do we? God, knows that insane woman confused him enough   
already . . . No, well, I missed the flight back to Connecticut, can't catch   
another one till tomorrow. Minor setback . . . for me anyway. Yeah, Junior and   
I are just gonna kick back and bond. Listen pop, I gotta motor, I'll see you   
tomorrow."  
Can you believe that Veronica once actually had the balls to ask me if I LIKED   
my father?! What kind of a question is that?! Hasn't she ever heard of   
unconditional love? Doesn't she know what it is to be loyal no matter how   
insane your parental units are?! Do I LIKE my father? The nerve! Of course I   
like my father, I taught him everything he knows. He worships me! Why else do   
you think he supports whatever I do?! Poison the popular kids? Sure. Blow up   
the school? Go for it! Kidnap my son? Wouldn't have it any other way.  
And you thought we had a bad relationship.  
Junior was happy as punch strapped into his Deluxe Baby-Safe Car Seat. He had   
about 3,000 toys scattered all over the back, and he was singing some Sesame   
Street song in this impish little voice of his. (I loved the way his eyebrows   
peaked at the high notes.) He had already predetermined that he was hungry and   
could do with a cherry slushy and a pizza cut up into tiny bite-sized morsels.   
(I was always partial to coke slushies myself, so I guess that's the Veronica in   
him.) Of course, what that all meant was that we'd have to stop at the Snappy   
Snack Shack.  
It was tempting to say: "Junior, this is the second place I met your mother,"   
but I decided against it. Mother-Dear would have to be weeded out of the   
picture. It would be tricky, he had already asked about her, and I was not   
about to tell him that she was locked up in a cabin somewhere with a Norwegian   
and a pack of thermals. His radio stunt had demonstrated that he was   
not in the most stable of mental states.   
I had my work cut out for me.  
And yet, as I pulled into the parking lot, envisioning me on my bike and   
Veronica sipping her icy drink through ruby red lips, I had this crazy thought   
that maybe we could make it work. After all, we had Junior--and both of us were   
out for his best interest. Though I'm sure our specific viewpoints conflicted.   
According to her, I was the worst thing for him.   
I glanced in the rearview mirror --there was more than just a hint of his mother   
in his round little face.  
I guess I would have to catch the early flight back to Connecticut.  
The full irony was not lost upon me: I still held a grudge against my own father   
for blowing up my mother. And here I was, blowing up the mother of my only   
child.  
Ouch.  
"Junior, it's slushy time," I announced, "Put on your sunglasses."  
"Slushy time!" He sung, slipping on a pair of sunglasses whose rims were shaped   
like stars.   
I watched him, slipping on a pair of my own.  
"Now your hat," I added.   
He obeyed, pulling on one of those Disney "Goofy" caps with the floppy ears. He   
seemed to know that he had to pretend he was someone else. After all, we were   
both supposed to be dead now, weren't we?  
I unsaddled him from the car seat and lifted him up. He continued to sing   
"slushy time" all the way into the convenience store.   
He had told me in the car that those stiffs who called themselves his parents   
had forbidden him to drink slushies! They were too "artificial" and "not good   
for him" and blah blah blah blah blah. What utter crap! You bring a child into   
this lousy world, you're supposed to spoil him every chance you get. It's   
compensation.  
So he shouted across the counter to the obvious Westerburg attendee that he   
wanted a cherry slushy, (I had to add the part about the pizza) and the kid went   
right to work on our order.   
That's when Satan decided to pay me a visit.  
"JD?"  
Gut instinct when you hear your name is to turn around, right? That's unless   
you know that you're supposed to be dead, and that you're holding a kidnapped   
child in your arms. So I did my best to just ignore whoever it was that thought   
they knew me.  
But she was persistent, and two seconds later I felt a tap on my shoulder. I   
didn't want to make it obvious that I was trying avoid people at all costs, so I   
turned around . . .  
AAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!  
That was the first thought through my head when I saw her: Ms. Phlegm staring at   
me with this utter look of horror plastered on her face. I could see the wheels   
turning in her mind that here was the dead kid back from the grave to haunt her   
for being a lousy guidance counselor. And it occurred to me that I had to make   
her feel as stupid as possible.  
"I'm sorry," I said, "Are you talking to me?"   
It took an intense amount of effort to change the gravely fluctuations of my   
voice to something that was, well, more yuppyish. Her cheeks flushed red, but   
she continued to study me, searching for some nuance in my face that would give   
me away. I was suddenly thankful that I had neglected to put in the ponytail   
this morning. That way the long black hair I had gone through such pains to   
grow could mask those very definitive features of my face. That, and as long as   
I could keep the eyebrows under control, she'd never see them through the   
sunglasses.  
"Oh, gosh," she said, "I thought you were someone else."   
I cringed at the very sound of her voice. Oh how I loaded the bullshit on her   
when I was at Westerburg. I had to be her most popular patient.   
Her eyes shot suddenly to Junior, as though she hadn't realized we were   
together. She looked him up and down, confused as hell at why there was a   
mini-me sitting on the counter. And he glared back, irritated that she was even   
speaking to us.  
"I'm so sorry," she went on, "you just reminded me so much of a student I once   
had."   
She sounded as though she were grieving.  
"Oh," I replied, my mind racing to all the details of my persona I had to   
conceal from her. "Is that a bad thing?"  
I think Junior sensed I was on edge; so he flipped on his "shy" switch--which I   
had realized by now was just a facade. The little devil was almost as crafty as   
I was. He feigned innocence beautifully!  
"Oh, no," Ms. Phlegm responded.   
I thought she would burst into tears at any moment; her melodramatic concern for   
my suicide was making me ill.  
"He was such a sweet boy, so sad."  
I felt my eyes bulge from their sockets.  
She always was a very bad judge of character.  
"All he really needed was a little love."   
She clutched her chest mournfully.  
'Why did God make you?' I thought. 'Was it just to irritate me? Because I   
really can't think of any other purpose.'  
"Sounds unfortunate," I said stiffly.  
"That poor, poor creature," she crooned.  
"Hurry up! Make the pizza!" Junior cried suddenly. His outburst surprised us   
both. The pimply-faced kid behind the counter shot him an annoyed look.  
I glanced at Ms. Phlegm; she had been thrown off guard.   
"He's hungry," I justified.  
"He sounds it." She replied, saddling up to him. "Are you hungry sweetheart?"   
'Lord have mercy,' I thought.  
Junior stuck his lip out at her. The kid behind the counter slapped the cherry   
slushy down in front of him."  
"Suck on that for awhile," he muttered under his breath.  
Normally I wouldn't have let that slide, but Ms. Phlegm's presence was putting a   
serious glitch in my style. If she hadn't been there, I would have given Junior   
a little lesson in how to scare the crap out of dumb assholes; but alas, no can   
do. I watched as Junior had some trouble getting the straw into his mouth.  
"Is he your brother?" Ms. Phlegm asked, studying Junior in his goofy hat and   
starry sunglasses.  
"Son," I replied flatly.  
"Oh," she sounded surprised. Guys my age were not supposed to have children.   
"Are you married?" She added.   
I blinked at her slowly.  
"Go away," Junior interjected.  
I had to laugh, but it came out sounding more like a gag.  
There was a momentary pause on her part.  
"Hmph," she said. "You should teach him some manners."   
She sounded taken aback.   
I coughed, "That's his mother's department."  
"Well, it shouldn't be."   
Here came the lecture.  
"It takes both parents to raise a child properly."  
I couldn't stand anymore.  
"Lady, do I know you?" I sneered.   
She suddenly remembered her place.  
"I suppose not."   
"Pizza!!" Junior cried.  
"Keep your pants on, it's coming!" The Westerburg kid shouted.   
The microwave beeped.  
"Pizza!" Junior cried again, more urgently.  
"He's pretty rambunctious," Ms. Phlegm observed.  
"I don't know where he gets it from," I muttered.  
She twisted her face. The kid boxed our pizza.  
"Will that be all?" He asked, obviously irritated by the child who was sucking   
on the slushy.  
I nodded, pulling Junior off the counter where he had made himself quite   
comfortable.  
"$9.95"  
I handed the kid a ten and grabbed the pizza,  
"Suck on that for awhile," I grumbled, heading quickly out the door.  
Junior rushed into the car as soon as we got to it.   
"Let's go, let's go!" He shouted, climbing into his car seat, slushy still in   
hand. Something told me he knew Ms. Phlegm could give us away. He desperately   
wanted to make good the escape. I had other methods.  
"Hang on there, big guy," I murmured, opening up the trunk, "Watch and learn."  
I withdrew a set of pliers from my black duffel bag and slid on my back   
beneath Ms. Phlegm's car. Junior stuck his head out to look on.  
"Is she coming?" I asked him, searching for the break line.  
He strained to see into the store.  
"Nope. She's talking to that guy."  
I clipped the line.  
"Good," I replied. "All finished."   
I wiped the break fluid off my chest with a rag, and strapped Junior into his   
car seat.  
"What did you do?" He asked casually, plunging the slushy straw between his now   
red lips.  
"Eliminating evidence," I grinned.  
"Take note, Junior, it's always good to clean up after yourself."  
  
* * *  
  
MENTAL NOTE: VERONICA HAS 1 HOUR TO LIVE.  
  
What did you expect? It takes time to schedule flights and return rental cars,   
and get on airplanes, and fly to Connecticut. Not to mention it's a three-hour   
drive from the Hartford airport to the cabin in the woods. But before all that   
I did manage to catch the Ohio news.   
Some poor guidance counselor is in a coma right now because her car hit a tree.   
I couldn't leave Sherwood without doing it one more gracious favor.  
It seems I have been on the road nonstop for the past 37 hours. But I haven't,   
we spent one final night in Ohio before catching the first flight to   
Connecticut. Junior couldn't wait; he had absolutely no attachment to Sherwood   
whatsoever. He could care less that I had whisked him away from all that he   
knew to take him to a place he had never been. Kind of like the way my father   
did to me all my life.  
Jesus, I'm turning into my parents!  
You know, you sit there and you say "When I have a kid, I will never do this to   
him. I will not blow up his mother, I will not uproot him and move him around   
all his life."  
And then you find yourself doing it.  
They say those of us who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it. But   
I've learned, that much I'm sure of . . . I think . . . damn, I know I've   
learned something.   
Or maybe not.  
After all, I am semi-rushing down this winding, twisting mountain road to get to   
a woman who's caused me nothing but pain and misery. And why am I doing this,   
you ask? This is the same woman who blew me off three years ago, blew me off   
and blew me up. Yes, she wanted nothing more than "cool guys like me" out of her   
life. Then she had my baby. Talk about your mixed messages.  
And speaking of baby.  
I glanced in the rearview at him pensively staring out the window. I knew he was   
thinking--what exactly, I wasn't sure. He was very tired; it had been non-stop   
all day. Planes, trains and automobiles, or something like that. Busy, busy,   
busy. I had thought of stopping at "grandpa's" house and dropping him off, but   
I just so badly wanted Veronica to see how he had turned out. It would be the   
one primo factor in how she determined her next course of action. She either   
A) would try to kill us both, or   
B) have no choice but to join me in raising our son.   
Was that what I really wanted?  
I have to admit I was indecisive.   
I was supposed to kill her.  
That's what I had spent three years planning--her death. But she had one last   
trick up her sleeve, lousy little minx. And damn, a child should have a mother.   
Even I know that. And this child, he was only happy with biological relatives,   
foster parents didn't do it for him, and I don't believe stepparents would fit   
the bill either. He wanted me, and he wanted Veronica.  
No two ways about it.  
And if he were as cunning as he was clever, then he would have her wrapped   
around his little finger better than I ever could. She'd be blinded by a   
mother's love.  
But no! Hell no!  
She was going to fuck me six ways from Sunday. There was absolutely no way I   
could delude myself into thinking that this would work out. Not now, not then,   
not ever.  
I pulled the car over.  
What the fuck was I doing?! Going back for HER?! She deserved every fucking   
thing she got. It was ridiculous; it shouldn't even have been an issue. I'd   
just have to tell Junior that mommy was dead, and there was nothing I could do   
about it. How could he ever find out otherwise if I didn't break down and tell   
him? But that's always my first mistake isn't it? I underestimate those who are   
mentally inferior. I did it with Veronica and she blew a couple of holes in me.   
And Junior, hell if he had my head on his shoulders, I'd have to be ready for   
anything. His intelligence was almost intimidating.   
Almost.  
"Why did we stop?" His voice piped up from the back.   
I heard a hint of me in his tone.  
"I'm having a moment of weakness, Junior" I replied, "Give me a minute."  
I glanced at the clock on the dash--Veronica had 30 minutes to live. And then   
for some ridiculous reason I had this flash. I saw my mother, retro-60's look-  
alike that she was, waving from that dear old library window in Texas. I saw   
her clear as crystal, and I remember thinking. "Hey, isn't there a bomb in that   
building?"  
"Fuck it," I muttered, roughly pulling the car back onto the road.  
There's no going back in this life, only forward.  
  
* * *   
  
MENTAL NOTE: VERONICA HAS 2 MINUTES TO LIVE.  
  
I had to blank out of my own head and look at this objectively:   
If I sped to the cabin, logic dictated that the bomb would go off just as I   
pulled into the driveway. That way it would not only take out Veronica, but me   
and Junior as well.   
That was not the game plan.  
So perhaps it was Divine Intervention that I found myself suddenly helpless   
against my own scheming? Perhaps the Powers That Be decided I was about to fuck   
myself over, so why not just rule out the possibilities by default?  
Hell, I gave it my best shot. I was five minutes away.  
I stopped the car in the middle of the road. No point in going any further.  
"We're stopping again," Junior observed.  
"I'm aware of that, darling," I muttered.  
"Is it another moment of weakness?" He asked.  
"Something like that."  
"Why?"  
1 MINUTE left.  
"Well, Junior," I began, "It seems I can't decide if I should take you to see   
grandpa or not."   
No use in mentioning mommy.  
"Do you want to see grandpa?"  
I scanned the tree line distractedly.  
"Does he have toys?" Junior murmured.  
"I'm sure we could find some," I replied. "And if not, he'll buy you toys."  
He considered this quickly.  
"Um, okay."   
I was actually surprised at how chipper he sounded. For a moment I was under the   
impression that he knew what was about to happen. But how could he?  
"Okay, then," I took a deep breath and popped a cigarette into my mouth.   
"It's done."  
The explosion shook everything around us as a stream of fire shot into the sky.   
I watched it, at first fascinated. Then I looked to him for some reaction. He   
said nothing as smoke billowed across the clouds and a great rumble of noise   
echoed from here to eternity.  
I lit my cigarette and turned the car around.  
It was time to go to grandpa's.  
"Daddy?" Junior asked a little later down the road.   
The ashen smell of smoke was still thick in the air.  
"Yes, June?" I replied.  
"That was a big boom, wasn't it?"   
I paused for a moment, feeling my way around his thoughts. Then I grinned and   
raised my eyebrows.  
"Yeah Pops, that was a big boom."  
  
  
(c) Elisa Higgins 2001  
scarlet@li.net  
Part III: "Junior"   
  
  
  
  
  



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